THE 
LAWRENCES OF THE PUNJAB 



All rights reserved 




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THE LAWRENCES 

OF THE PUNJAB 



BY 

FREDERICK P. GIBBON 

AUTHOR OF "the RECORD OF THE SIKHS," 
" THE GURKHA SCOUTS," ETC. 




1908 

LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO. 
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 






tx 






TO 

FIELD-MARSHAL 

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

THE EARL ROBERTS, V.C, K.G. 

THIS BOOK IS (by HIS PERMISSION) 
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 



NOTE 

For the greater part of the material used in this biography 
I am indebted to Mr. R. Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord 
Lawrence, to the Lije of Sir Henry Lawrence by Sir Herbert 
Edwardes and Mr. Merivale, and to Sir John Kaye's History 
of the Sepoy War and Lives of Indian Officers. 

My acknowledgments are especially due to Mr. Bosworth 
Smith for permission freely " to dig in his mine," and I 
have endeavoured to show appreciation of his courtesy 
by making copious use of the permission. 

I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude also 
to Lieut. -Colonel D. C. Phillott for the photographs of 
Punjabis, and to Colonel J. Hay, C.B., for that of the 
Gurkhas. 



vu 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction . . . . . . . ■ xvii. 

CHAPTER I— 1806-1823 

BOYHOOD 

The Lawrence Family — Henry's School-days — His Courage — 
John at Foyle College and Wraxhall — No Indication of 
Future Greatness ....... i 

CHAPTER II— 1822-1829 

HENRY AT DUM-DUM 

The Bengal Artillery — Padre Craufurd — War with Burma — 
Invalided Home — ^Honoria Marshall — The Lawrence 
Fund . .11 

CHAPTER III— 1827-1833 

JOHN ENTERS THE CIVIL SERVICE 

Self-Conquest — Haileybury College — The Brothers sail for 

India Together . . . . . . . .19 

CHAPTER IV— 1830-1838 

JOHN AT DELHI 

As District Officer — " John Lawrence knows Everything " 

— His Strength, Resolution, and Resource . . . 25 

CHAPTER V— 1833-1837 

THE REVENUE SURVEY 

The Land Revenue — The New Settlement of the North-West 
Provinces — " Lawrence's confounded Zeal " — Village 
Communities . . . . . . . .38 



X Contents 

CHAPTER VI— 1835-1838 
HENRY Lawrence's love story 

PAGE 

Death of Colonel Lawrence — Henry's Care for His Mother — 
Marries Honoria Marshall — Her Letters from India — 
Rumours of War — A Wife's Remonstrance ... 46 

CHAPTER VII— 1838-1842 

JOHN LAWRENCE FINDS A WIFE 

Etawa — Fever and Home Leave — His Irish Temperament — 

Marriage-^Bad News from Kabul . . . -59 

CHAPTER VIII— 1838-1841 

THE CIS-SUTLEJ STATES 

Henry at Ferozepore — His Town prospers — The Sikhs have 

Confidence in Him . . . . . . .63 

CHAPTER IX— 1841-1842 

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 

Lord Auckland's Madness — The Kabul Disaster — George 
Lawrence a Prisoner — Sikh Contempt of the English — 
Gravity of the Situation — Henry Lawrence selected as 
Political Of&cer with the Army — Sikh Co-operation — A 
Wife's Heroism . . . . . . .68 

CHAPTER X— 1 842- 1 843 

STEPPING STONES 

George Lawrence's Captivitj? — Henry offers Himself in Ex- 
change — Capture of Kabul and Release of the Prisoners — 
Henry transferred to the Dehra Dhoon — To Amballa — 
To Kytul — John in Charge of Kurnal — The Brothers 
Meet — Henry's Work Appreciated .... 79 



Contents xi 



CHAPTER XI— 1843-184S 

NEPAL AND THE GURKHAS 

PAGE 

Nepal — Its Inhabitants — A Barbarous Court — The Gurkhas 
— Mrs. Lawrence's Letters from Nepal — Literary Work 
— The Lawrence Asylums ...... 89 



CHAPTER XII— 1845-1846 

THE SIKHS 

Lord Hardinge and John Lawrence — History of the Sikhs — 
Sikh Aggression — Both Henry and John are needed — 
Defeat of the Sikhs — Gulab Singh and Kashmir . .105 

CHAPTER XIII— 1846-1847 

THE LAWRENCES AND THEIR PUNJABIS 

Henry becomes the " Ruling Spirit of the Punjab " — His 
' Disciples " — The Lahore Residency — John administers 
the Jalandar Doab — Female Infanticide — John's Subordi- 
nates — Sikh Intrigues — Banishment of the Maharani . 118 

CHAPTER XIV— 1 847- 1 848 

THE SECOND SIKH WAR 

Henry's Liberality — Benefits of his Rule — His Health breaks 
down, and John officiates for Him — Henry returns to 
England — The Multan Revolt — Fatal Delay — Herbert 
Edward es — The Punjab Ablaze . . . . .136 

CHAPTER XV— January-March 1849 

A NEW ERA IN INDIA 

Henry's Policy overturned — Lord Dalhousie — Gujerat — 
Henry opposes, John urges, Annexation — The Governor- 
General agrees with John . . . . . ,147 



xii Contents 

CHAPTER XVI— 1849-185 1 

THE PUNJAB BOARD 



PAGE 



A Rule of Three — Disarmament — The Frontier Force — The 
Guides — Thuggee and Dacoity stamped out — PubUc 
Works — The Province pays its Way — The " Punjab 
Head " — John's Capacity for Work . . . .159 

CHAPTER XVII— 1850-1852 

THE DERRY SCHOOLFELLOWS 

The Koh-i-nur — Robert Montgomery — Story of a Christmas 

Box — Gulab Singh and the Lawrence Asylums . . 173 

CHAPTER XVIII— 1849-1853 

INCOMPATIBLE IDEALS 

Controversy with Sir Charles Napier — The Shadow of the 
Mutiny — The Jaghirdars — Irreconcilable Differences of 
Opinion between the Brothers — Both offer to Resign — 
Lord Dalhousie accepts Henry's Resignation — ^He leaves 
the Punjab — Grief of the Natives . . . .179 

CHAPTER XIX— 1853-1856 

JOHN LAWRENCE RULES THE PUNJAB 

John Supreme in the Punjab — " How would Henry have 
acted? " — John Nicholson, Neville Chamberlain, Robert 
Napier, Donald Macleod — Treaty with Afghanistan — 
Lord Dalhousie's Affection for John — Last Meeting 
between the Brothers ...... 205 

CHAPTER XX— 1853-1856 

HENRY LAWRENCE AND THE RAJPUTS 

Rajput Degeneracy — Gaol Reform — Suttee checked — Death of 
Lady Lawrence — Absorption of Native States — Annexa- 
tion of Oudh . . . . . . . .221 



Contents xiii 

CHAPTER XXI— May i8s6-May 1857 

LUCKNOW AND OUDH 

PAGE 

Henry Lawrence in Lucknow — Disaffection — The Talukdars 
— Causes of Discontent — The Greased Cartridges — Mungul 
Pandy — Lawrence's Popularity and Influence — An Abor- 
tive Revolt — Speech to the People . . . .234 

CHAPTER XXII— May-August 1857 

THE MUTINY 

The Outbreak at Meerut — Bahadur Shah proclaimed Emperor 
— John Lawrence's prompt Action — Lord Canning and 
the Lawrences — Both grip the Situation — State of the 
Punjab — Loyalty of the Cis-Sutlej Princes — Corbett and 
Montgomery at Lahore — The Movable Column — " King 
John" — Jalandar — Multan — A "Master-stroke" at 
Peshawar — Becher — The Punjab Army before Delhi — 
Proposed Abandonment of Peshawar — Jhelum — Sialkot 
— Lawrence sends Nicholson to take Delhi . . .251 

CHAPTER XXIII— May-July 1857 

SIEGE OF LUCKKOW AND DEATH OF HENRY LAWRENCE 

Henry Lawrence prepared — He wins over a Number of 
Sepoys — Failure of the Rebel Plans — A Headstrong 
Subordinate — The Cawnpore Massacre — Chinhut — Death 
of Henry Lawrence . . . . . . .282 



CHAPTER XXIV— September 1857-DECEMBER 1858 

JOHN LAWRENCE SAVES INDIA 

Nicholson's Last Fight — Effect of the Capture of Delhi — 
Lawrence raises the Khalsa to Life — He appeals for 
Mercy in the Hour of Victory — Edward es' Elimination 
of all Unchristian Principles Memorandum . . . 299 



xiv Contents 



CHAPTER XXV— 1859-1869 

VICEROY OF INDIA 

PAGE 

Honours — Reception in England — Appointed Viceroy — The 
Orissa Famine — Crisis in Bombay — Public Works — 
Tenancy Acts — Relations with Secretaries of State — His 
Simplicity — Calumnies — His Durbars — Raised to the 
Peerage . . . . . . . . .318 

CHAPTER XXVI— 1869-1879 

THE LAST YEARS OF JOHN LAWRENCE 

Home Life — The London School Board — Tributes to Mis- 
sionary Work ^-^ Miss Caster's Reminiscences — The 
Forward Policy-' — He condemns the Government's Afghan 
Policy — His Death . . . . . . .330 

Index ' ... 343 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



/ 



Sir HenrI' Lawrence .... 

Gurkhas ...... 

Mahzud Waziris from the Bannu District 

Map of Punjab ..... 

A Pathan (Shahzada Sultan Jan, of Kohat) 

A Sikh of the Manjha (Risaldar Gurmukh Singl 
3rd Punjab Cavalry) .... 

Lord Lawrence ..... 



Frontispiece 

Facing page 98 

208 

250 

270 



304 

.118 / 



INTRODUCTION 

Whenever our thoughts turn towards the achievements 
of Enghshmen in India, when, with a thrill of pride, we 
reflect that no nation can show a like array of men who 
have served a subject state so devotedly, when the names 
of those faithful servants fall in to the bugle-call of memory, 
the first to be told off are those of Henry Lawrence, who 
died the best-loved man that ever set foot in India, and 
of John Lawrence, his brother, who lived to win greater 
respect than has been granted to any other Anglo-Indian. 
The one " represented the poetry of Indian statesmanship," 
the other " its hard direct prose." ^ 

The story is unique in the history of brothers. The 
children of a poor soldier, the Lawrences raised themselves 
untU they wielded power an emperor might have envied, 
and this position they attained, not by climbing over 
their fellows and thrusting them down, not by intrigue 
and trickery, nor by depreciation of other men's work and 
advertisement of their own, but by sheer merit, by inspiring 
and justifying confidence in their integrity and ability. 

Henry Lawrence was born in Ceylon in 1806, John at 
Richmond, Yorkshire, five years later, and both were 
educated at a small school in the north of Ireland. Henry 
became a soldier in the service of the East India Company. 
In the popular mind the antithesis of the soldier is the 
clerk, the career selected for, not by, the younger brother, 
^ Captain Trotter's Lord Dalhousie, p. 62. 



xviii The Lawrences of the Punjab 

who also turned his steps towards the East, where he met 
with adventures of a kind more readily connected with the 
tales of Schehera-zade than with the actual experience of 
a middle-class Englishman in the nineteenth century; 
and Jan Larens knows everything was the verdict of the 
natives. The offer of an appointment in the Revenue 
Survey lured the soldier brother from his regiment, and, 
after filling an important political office throughout the 
Afghan War, he was sent to represent England in the 
kingdom of Nepal. 

In 1846 a new country was brought under British sway 
— twenty millions of hardy fighting men, of warring sects, 
agreed upon one point only, the worship of success and 
strength. To keep the peace, to restore, or create, order 
and respect for the law, to encourage all that made for 
prosperity in a land where every man was armed, hoping 
to live, and expecting to die, by the sword — to do all this 
in the name of an infant maharaja, and hampered by 
the intrigues of the Sikh Council, was hardly a work suited 
to a committee. A ruler was needed; a tyrant, wise, 
strong, sympathetic, and single-hearted, and there was 
one man fitted for the task. Henry Lawrence was trans- 
ferred from Nepal. 

He ruled the Punjab, and the land had rest and peace. 
Round him he gathered and trained a brotherhood of 
assistants whose equal in the art of government the world 
has never seen, and of these subordinates the foremost was 
his brother John. Ability and force of character had 
brought together the soldier and the civilian to share in 
the most arduous and responsible work in the empire. 

In due course came the need of a council, and the Board 
of Administration of the Punjab was formed after the 
annexation of the Sikh kingdom. Henry was president 
of this Rule of Three experiment, John his right-hand man, 
and — a coincidence too improbable to be approved in 



Introduction xix 

fiction — in 1852 the other member of the board was a 
third schoolfellow from the Derry College. 

The land prospered; the brothers were honoured, even 
loved, by the Punjabis, upon whom the fact had begun to 
dawn that the one aim of their rulers was the good of the 
people whom they governed. The sense of responsibility 
was strong upon the Lawrences, to God as to man. Heroes, 
demi-gods, were they in the eyes of the Sikhs, yet they were 
only two strong men of finer clay than most. Being 
human they could not see eye to eye, and each adhered 
to his opinion where convinced that the welfare of his 
people was at stake. It was no common-place quarrel 
that separated the brothers, each of whom loved and 
admired the other above all men — neither jealousy nor 
ambition, love of power nor greed of gold, but an honest 
dissension respecting the measures best calculated to 
promote the welfare of the millions whom they ruled and 
served. Both offered to resign, and the Governor-General 
declared in favour of the younger. 

Sore at heart Henry left the Punjab to take up the reins 
of government in Rajputana, and once more he gave of 
his best to the service of mankind and of the God to whom 
his life had been consecrated thirty years before; and 
John ruled the Sikhs with wisdom, foresight, and courage, 
and — because he loved and honoured his brother — with 
an increase of sympathy. 

John wreaked his vengeance upon the destiny that had 
placed the pen in his hand and withheld the sword, by 
creating an army of nearly one hundred thousand men, 
when the soldiers of the eastern provinces had turned 
against their masters. In the Punjab alone, where the 
name of Jan Larens was most trusted and feared, where 
the memory of Henry's kindness and sympathy was still 
powerful for good, there only could stout warriors be raised 
to march against the mutineers. As a statesman John 



XX The Lawrences of the Punjab 

held the Punjab loyal; as a soldier he out-generalled the 
sepoys and wrecked their hopes. 

Henry died when the prospect was darkest, loved and 
mourned with a depth of sincerity unparalleled in India. 
The younger brother surmounted all obstacles and triumphed 
gloriously. 



THE 

LAWRENCES OF THE PUNJAB 

CHAPTER I 

(1806-1822) 

BOYHOOD 

The Lawrence Family — Henry's Schooldays — His Courage — 
John at Foyle College and at Wraxhall — No Indication of 
Future Greatness. 

Henry Montgomery Lawrence was born at Matura 
in Ceylon on June 28, 1806. His father, Captain Alex- 
ander Lawrence, son of a mill-owner of Coleraine, had 
served with much distinction in India, but though twice 
recommended for promotion by the Commander-in-Chief, 
lack of influence had outweighed merit, and after a quarter 
of a century of fighting he returned to England a simple 
captain. Then his old colonel interceded and procured 
him a majority. 

A sixth son, John Laird Mair, was born in Richmond in 
Yorkshire in 181 1. Next year Major Lawrence was pro- 
moted to the command of a battalion in Guernsey, and 
throughout the Waterloo campaign he was in charge of the 
Ostend garrison. Broken down by wounds and ill-health 
he retired from the army with a pension of ;^ioo, one-third 
of the sum to which he was entitled by the rules of the 
service. Lord Harris, his former commander, made an 
attempt to secure to the veteran his rights, but Lord 
Palmerston, then Secretary to the War Office, " regretted 
that he did not feel at liberty " to advise the Prince Regent 



2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

to set aside the technical quibble that seemed likely to 
deprive one who had served the state so well of the means 
of sustenance for his family. Want of liberality was not 
one of the failings of the East India Company: though 
Colonel Lawrence had never worn its uniform he had fought 
its battles, and the Company made the battered hero a 
present of one hundred guineas and granted him a pension 
of £120. 

That Colonel Lawrence had not prospered to the measure 
of his deserts was due rather to his virtues than to his 
failings. He was too blunt and straightforward to endear 
himself to men superior in rank and vastly inferior in 
character and mind, and upon this rock he had wrecked 
his chance of fortune. 

Mrs. Lawrence was the daughter of the Rev. George 
Knox of County Donegal, a member of a family with 
which John Knox, the Reformer, was remotely connected. 
God-fearing, upright, and self-denying, she was not only a 
good woman but a good mother. She managed the large 
household with wisdom and thrift, and the lives of her 
children bear eloquent testimony to her virtues. 

Letitia, the eldest sister, contributed largely to the 
formation of the boys' characters. They owed much to 
her wise love, and her influence for good continued after 
they had attained to high positions, for the men that 
controlled millions of their fellow-creatures were never 
ashamed to ask her advice and seek her approval. 

Another refining influence was at work among the Law- 
rence children in the person of " Aunt Angel " Knox, a 
saintly woman, who made her home with them in York- 
shire during the years of Henry's childhood. In the year 
1812 Colonel Lawrence's regiment was ordered to Guernsey, 
and twelve months later the household was broken up, the 
three elder brothers, Alexander, George, and Henry, leav- 
ing home for Foyle College, Derry, the school of which 



Boyhood 3 

their uncle, the Rev. James Knox, was headmaster, and 
under her brother's roof " Aunt Angel " continued her 
lessons of patience, humility, and charity during the 
greater part of Henry's life at Foyle College. She taught 
him the joy of giving — not out of abundance but by self- 
denial, not merely by the sacrifice of an occasional luxury, 
but by giving up that which might be held as necessary. 

In time Alexander, the eldest boy, was nominated to 
the Addiscombe Military College by Mr. John Huddleston, 
a connection by marriage and a director of the East India 
Company ; and in the summer of the following year, 1819, 
George, the second son, was dedicated to the same career. 
George and Henry rejoined their parents — now living at 
Clifton near Bristol — after an absence of six years. Before 
relegating George Lawrence to comparative obscurity in 
these pages, it may be mentioned that he also has a claim to 
be considered a " Lawrence of the Punjab," though the 
fame of the two most distinguished Lawrences has over- 
shadowed that of their brothers. Of Colonel Lawrence's 
seven sons the first-born died in infancy, the fifth at the 
age of eighteen. The surviving five were all distinguished 
Anglo-Indians, who attained high rank in the military 
and civil services, and George became a power among the 
Sikhs and Mohammedans of the North- West Frontier. 

While Alexander, George, and Henry were at Derry, 
John had been a prisoner, condemned by an attack of 
ophthalmia to the close confinement of a darkened room. 
For twelve long months the vigorous and restless boy of 
six years of age was cut off from the main sources of boyish 
delights, dependent for a temporary escape from tedium 
upon the love and devotion of Letitia and of Margaret, 
the old nurse. In after years he used to declare that he 
would still be able at any time to distinguish from all others 
the feel of the hands he clasped in the darkness as he lay 
listening to their tales. 



4 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

After George had left for Addiscombe, Henry was sent 
for a further twelve months' tuition to Mr. Gough's school 
in College Green, Bristol, and before long John, at the age 
of eight, was allowed to accompany the much-admired 
brother. On the top of Brandon Hill (separating Clifton 
from Bristol) the boys used daily to pass an old man, who 
was trying to exist by means of a trade, than which a more 
precarious can hardly be imagined — the sale of pin-cushions. 
Henry grew interested in him and often helped him out of 
his own small store, until the man came to be looked upon 
as a Lawrence dependant. When home on furlough after 
the war with Burma Henry continued to take an interest 
in the well-being of his old pensioner. " He never lost 
sight of any one in whom he had ever taken the slightest 
interest," said Letitia. 

" I remember when we were both at school at Bristol," 
John wrote to Sir Herbert Edwardes,^ " there was a poor 
Irish usher named Flaherty, and he had done something 
to offend the master of the school, who called up all the 
boys and got on a table and made us a great speech, in 
which he denounced poor Flaherty as ' a viper he had been 
harbouring in his bosom; ' and he also denounced some 
one of the boys who had taken Flaherty's part as ' an 
assassin who had deeply wounded him! ' I was a little 
chap then, eight years old, and I did not understand what 
it was all about ; but as I trotted home with Henry, who 
was then about fourteen, I looked up and asked who the 
' assassin ' was who had ' wounded ' the master. Henry 
very quietly replied, ' I am the assassin ! ' I remember 
too, in connection with this very same row, seeing Henry 
get up very early one morning (we slept in the same room) , 
and I asked where he was going. He said, ' To Brandon 
Hill, to fight Thomas.' (Thomas was the bully of the 
school.) I asked him if I might go with him, and he said, 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 20. 



Boyhood 5 

'Yes, if you like.' I said, ' Who is to be your second? ' 
Henry said, ' You, if you like.' So off we went to Brandon 
Hill to meet Thomas, but Thomas never came to the 
rendezvous, and we returned with flying colours, and 
Thomas had to eat humble-pie in the school. Henry was 
naturally a bony, muscular fellow, very powerful; but 
that fever in Burmah seemed to scorch him up, and he 
remained all the rest of his life very thin and attenuated." 

In the summer of 1820 Henry Lawrence, then in his 
fifteenth year, entered Addiscombe College, his admission 
being also due to Mr. Huddles ton. John remained at the 
Bristol school, whose master was apparently a disciple of 
Busby, for the future viceroy admitted that the only varia- 
tion upon his daily flogging there was the memorable day 
upon which he was flogged twice. 

Alexander and George had both received commissions in 
the cavalry; and before Henry had been long at Addis- 
combe a similar offer was made to him. Cavalry appoint- 
ments — the chief prizes of Addiscombe — were within the 
gift of the Company's directors, but the third son of Colonel 
Lawrence preferred to complete his course and take his 
chance of the artillery, lest it should be inferred that the 
Lawrences were afraid of the examination that had to be 
passed before admission to the scientific arm could be 
gained. 

Several college incidents have been narrated by Sir 
Herbert Edwardes to illustrate Henry's courage. On one 
occasion he came across one of the senior cadets in the act 
of reading a letter from Letitia, and the result may be 
guessed. The transgressor was by far the bigger and older, 
and as Lawrence would have died rather than have given 
in, the bystanders were obliged to stop the unequal 
combat. 

This might have been expected of any hot-tempered 
lad, reared in a martial atmosphere and schooled in the 



6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

city of No Surrender/ More characteristic of Henry 
Lawrence the great-hearted is the story of a quarrel with 
a younger and weaker comrade. This lad was remarkable 
among the other cadets for the unenvied possession of " a 
large blue swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons," and on 
the way to church one day Henry laughed at the oddity. 
Mutual recriminations and the inevitable agreement to 
" have it out after church " followed the peculiarly irritat- 
ing request for the maker's name. The stronger boy had 
time for reflection during the service. He was obviously 
in the wrong, yet, being abnormally sensitive, how could 
he avoid the fight without violating the school-boy code 
of honour? Would it not look better to fight first and 
apologise when he had proved he was no coward? It 
would not do; his mind was too clear to be misled by 
soothing casuistry, and no sooner was the service over 
than he strode up to his opponent, held out his hand, and 
manfully expressed regret. 

" I was wrong and rude and in fault. Let us be friends," 
he said, and so it came about and the friendship endured, 
strengthened by a further tie. A little later the same 
youngster, Robert Guthrie Macgregor, saved Henry's life. 
Bathing in the canal Lawrence was attacked by cramp 
and would certainly have been drowned had not Macgregor 
risked his own life, after several others had failed, and 
brought him safely to the bank. 

A third instance reveals the same courage in a new light. 
To be sneered at as a coward would not have been easy for 
a boy of his temperament to bear, but he could have had 
the satisfaction of proving the sneerer in the wrong in a 
very practical way. To arouse smiles of pity as an 
eccentric would afford no scope for retaliation. During 
the holidays he used to beg old clothes from his family 
and friends in order to help a lady whose poverty had 
aroused his ever-ready sympathy, and he was not ashamed 



Boyhood 7 

to carry the bundle through the streets of London. A 
Httle thing! but it must be borne in mind that Henry 
Lawrence was more than ordinarily thin-skinned, and that 
to the close of his career his greatest fault was his quick- 
ness to be wounded by ridicule and disapproval. Thirty- 
five years later Sir Henry Lawrence remembered this same 
lady in his will. " He never lost sight of any one in whom 
he had ever taken the slightest interest." 

At the age of twelve John left Bristol for the uncle's 
school at Derry. Born in England, of Scoto-Irish parents, 
he combined the best traits of the three nationalities. 
In Henry's temperament the Irishman was the dominant 
partner; in that of John, English strength and Scottish 
caution prevailed, though the Irish blood would often show 
in outbreaks of boisterous humour. At the Bristol school 
he was known as Paddy ; English John was his Derry name ; 
and at both places the boys were wont forcibly to express 
their disapproval of the alien element. 

Foyle College seems to have been given over to the 
military spirit, boarders and day-boys of course supplying 
the antagonists. In a field close at hand the former had 
constructed a fortress which they garrisoned at all possible 
hours, day and night, to prevent the disgrace of its occupa- 
tion by the day-boy enemy. This nice point of honour 
furnished the needed excitement, as the night-guard could 
only reach its post via the dormitory windows, thus adding 
the masters to the ranks of their foemen, whereas the day- 
boys could more easily leave their homes and assemble 
without exciting suspicion. The combatants being Irish 
boys the struggles for possession were rough, and no doubt 
John Lawrence enjoyed them thoroughly. 

After two years at Foyle College he was sent to Wraxhall 
School, near Bath, and here he distinguished himself by 
various feats of daring. On summer nights he would 



8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

contrive to enjoy a bathe in the stream by taking out the 
iron window-bar and scrambHng down the pear-tree that 
was trained against the wall. Had he had the leisure and 
the opportunity John Lawrence would probably have 
achieved distinction in the Alps or at Wastdale Head. 

A schoolfellow coveted the eggs of a certain swallow. 
" ' I'll get the eggs for you,' said John, and went straight 
to the chimney, and began to climb it inside. It soon 
became too narrow for his burly frame. ' Never mind, 
I'll get them yet,' he said, and at once went to the window. 
I and my brother followed him through it, and, climbing a 
wall twelve feet high, which came out from one end of the 
house and formed one side of the court, pushed him up 
from its summit as far as we could reach towards the roof. 
He was in his nightshirt, with bare feet and legs; but, 
availing himself of any coign of vantage that he could find, 
he actually managed to climb up the wall of the house by 
himself. When he reached the roof, he crawled up the 
coping-stones at the side on his knees, and then began to 
make his way along the ridge towards the chimney; but 
the pain by this time became too great for human endur- 
ance. ' Hang it all,' he cried, ' I can't go on,' and he had 
to give it up."^ 

Neither Henry nor John was a keen cricket or football 
player, the schools they attended having failed to offer 
great attractions in the matter of games. Nor did the}^ 
shine as scholars, and though an observer might, without 
much risk to his reputation for perspicacity, have hazarded 
the opinion that each of the boys would develop a character, 
strong, just, and sane, no one would have dared to antici- 
pate their brilliant careers. One friend indeed attempted 
to soften for Letitia the blow of Henry's departure for 
India by the prophecy that he would live to be " Sir Henry," 
but he would hardly have been selected from the one 
1 Bosvvorth Smith, vol. i. p. 20. 



Boyhood 9 

hundred and twenty Addiscombe cadets as the one most 
hkely to distinguish himself. He was certainly industrious, 
and of all studies mathematics most appealed to him. He 
was fond of walking and amused himself by surveying the 
country with an eye to its military adaptability. He tried 
to find out the reason of everything, weighing cause and 
effect, and this habit of mind may have had something 
to do with his apparent slowness. He was not content 
unless he understood where others preferred to learn by 
rote. His own opinion of his schooling was that " for my 
part my education consisted in kicks. I was never taught 
anything — no, not even at Addiscombe. The conse- 
quences are daily and hourly before me to this day." 
And when Letitia expressed regret that the teaching had 
been imperfect, he replied, ' ' Well, that's past ; we can now 
teach ourselves." 

John's opinion was less unfavourable.^ " At school and 
at college I did not work regularly and continuously, and 
did not avail myself of the opportunities which offered for 
securing a good education. But I worked by fits and 
starts. . . . When I went to Haileybury I was a fair Latin 
and mathematical scholar, and a poor Greek one; but I 
had read a great deal in a desultory fashion, particularly 
of history and biography, and was generally for my age 
well-informed." In a conversation with Sir Herbert 
Edwardes he recalled a remark of Henry's made during the 
progress of the first Sikh War:^ " I remember my brother 
Henry one night in Lord Hardinge's camp turning to me 
and saying, ' Do you think we were clever as lads ? / 
don't think we were.' But it was not altogether that we 
were dull. We had very few advantages — had not had 
very good education — and were consequently backward 
and deficient. We were both bad in languages, and always 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. i8. 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 29-30. 



lo The Lawrences of the Punjab 

continued so; and were not good in anything which 
required a technical memory; but we were good in any- 
thing which required thought and judgment. We were 
good, for instance, in history. And so far from Henry 
being dull, I can remember that I myself always considered 
him a fellow of power and mark ; and I observed that others 
thought so." 

They had, however, no doubts concerning theii home- 
training and its influence. The stern courage, the sim- 
plicity, and the high code of honour of the father were 
ever before them; the mother's self-denial and living 
religion inspired them, and to crown all they were blessed 
in having an elder sister whose strength of character and 
Christian sweetness had more effect upon their lives than 
any other influence of their environment. To the invalid 
couch of Letitia the boys came with their doubts and 
diiflculties; her advice it was that guided them, and to 
her they wrote their inmost thoughts. 



CHAPTER II 

(1822-1829) 

HENRY AT DUM-DUM 

The Bengal Artillery — Padre Craufurd — War with Burma — 
Invalided Home — Honoria Marshall — The Lawrence Fund. 

While John was still a day-boy at the Bristol school, 
Henry passed the Addiscombe examination for a com- 
mission in the Bengal Artillery and prepared to follow his 
elder brothers to India. Colonel Lawrence had resolved 
that none of his sons should enter the king's army where 
his services had been so shabbily requited; and it was to 
India that he looked for a future for his boys. 

The separation was peculiarly hard for Letitia in whose 
heart Henry held the foremost place; and imaginative 
as the young soldier was, the glamour of the East and the 
prospect of adventure failed to deaden for him the pain 
of parting. Had any other career offered he would will- 
ingly have remained at home, but poverty urged the step. 
Colonel Lawrence was weak and ailing; in spite of the 
frugality and self-denial of Mrs. Lawrence the resources 
of the family were sorely tried, and Henry was fired by the 
thought that both Alexander and George had already been 
able to send home a portion of their pay. Such aid the 
colonel had at first been unwilling to accept, knowing by 
experience the expense of living in India, but his wife had 
wisely reasoned that, "It is good for the boys that they 
should begin life with denying themselves and helping 
others." So Henry Lawrence at the age of sixteen went 
out into the world, his ambition being to help those he 

II 



1 2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

loved, his fate to win eternal fame and, what was still 
more precious to him, unequalled love. 

During the outward voyage a warm friendship was 
formed with John Edwards, a cadet of the same corps, 
and on arrival at Dum-Dum, the artillery headquarters, 
a few miles north-east of Calcutta, the two youngsters 
decided to share a bungalow. The first letters home 
showed that the new duties were being taken up with zeal, 
and this enthusiasm for the artillery Henry Lawrence 
never lost. Though destined to be taken from his regiment 
for staff and political duties, he remained loyal to his first 
love, and even when ruler over many cities he was most 
happy when helping to serve the guns. 

In spite, however, of his attachment to the artillery. 
Lieutenant Lawrence made an attempt to exchange into 
the cavalry, that the increased pay might enable him 
to send home larger remittances, but his application was 
not successful. He continued to live frugally and, abstain- 
ing from costly pleasures, worked hard at his profession, 
and made a special study of historical and military works. 
Chess became his favourite pastime, though he was not 
naturally an adept at it, and a sketch drawn by one of his 
chums illustrates at once the hot temper of the lad and the 
recognition by his comrades of his real goodness of heart. 

" ' For the fun of it,' ^ says one of his antagonists, ' when 
we saw checkmate on the board, we began to draw back 
our chairs as if preparing for retreat. Lawrence would 
perceive this, but say nothing, till the winning party made 
the fatal move and rushed to the door, saying, " Check- 
mate! " when Lawrence, half in anger, half in jest, would 
often send the board after him. On the other hand, when 
he won a chance game from a superior, he hastened to say, 
" You play better than I do." And from studying the 
good and bad moves of others, he shaped out for himself 
. ^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, pp. 37-38. 



Henry at Dum-Dum 13 

ere long a skilful style of play, much beyond the promise 
of his commencement. I mention this,' says the narrator, 
' because much of what he acquired in after life was by the 
same patient practice; an emulous observation of what 
was right, or careful avoidance of what was wrong, in the 
ways and means by which others worked.' " 

His first chums, Lieutenants Edwards and Ackers, were 
soon obliged to leave Dum-Dum by ill-health. He was 
next attracted by Lieutenant Lewin, an old Addiscombe 
friend of one of his brothers, concerning whom he wrote to 
his sister, " It is really wonderful to me to see the conver- 
sion of Lewin, having known him as a worldly-minded lad. 
His whole thoughts now seem to be of what good he can 
do. I only wish I was like him. ' ' 

The friendship of Lewin brought him into closer touch 
with one destined to wield a much greater influence over 
his character, " Padre " Craufurd, the junior chaplain of 
the old church at Calcutta, to whom Lewin's conversion 
had been due, and through whom the artillery station had 
become a kind of Christian headquarters in India. Mr. 
Craufurd had gathered round him, at " Fairy Hall," a 
little band of officers, and Lawrence was now persuaded 
to take up his quarters with these " Methodists." 

Abhorrence of hypocrisy made him cautious in the pro- 
fession of religion, and his reserved and retiring nature 
would not permit him easily to lay bare his heart. He 
joined in the services at Fairy Hall, but would never 
consent to pray aloud, and he rarely took the sacrament 
at Dum-Dum. " What I want to be assured of," he one 
day observed to Mr. Craufurd, when discussing the Bible, 
" is that this book is God's. Because, when I know that, 
I have nothing left but to obey it." ^ 

The first occasion on which he opened his heart to the 

chaplain, whose influence, though apparently so slow to 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 47. 

B 



14 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

work, was to increase and endure, was the result of an 
accident. Lawrence had bought a vicious pony that had 
already done its best to kill him. In spite of one narrow 
escape and of the warnings of his friends, he persuaded 
the " Padre " to drive behind it to visit some brother 
officers. The buggy was upset in a ditch and the occupants 
were stunned; and contrition for his rashness in risking 
the chaplain's life impelled him to speak with less reserve 
than ever before, and mutual confidence was established. 

The impression made on the young man by Craufurd's 
friendship and example became more and more marked. 
He had never ignored his faults of hasty temper and a too 
great sensitiveness, but now he felt impelled to wage more 
strenuous war, and he was no longer alone in the fight. 
Mr. Craufurd's influence leavened his whole life, with the 
result that no humbler man ever served in India than he 
whom Sir John Kaye has termed " The Christian Warrior." 

Henry Lawrence was eighteen years of age when, on the 
outbreak of war with Burma, he was placed in charge of six 
guns and one hundred men, under orders for Chittagong. 
The Burmese had been gradually encroaching on their 
neighbours until stayed by British territory. Then ensued 
a series of insults and annoyances, endured with patience 
and even humility by the English. In 1811, the King of 
Burma demanded the extradition of a political refugee 
who had found asylum in Chittagong, and this being 
refused, he laid claim to Chittagong itself, a territory that 
had never known the sway of the Ava court. 

The pains taken by the Governor-General to explain 
the true position of affairs, and the patience with which 
the policy of insult was borne, had not tended to deter 
the Burmese from their purpose. In their ignorance they 
were persuaded that no motive other than fear could have 
inspired so apologetic a tone. Page after page of modern 
Indian history tells the same story — state after state 



Henry at Dum-Dum 15 

absorbed, campaign followed by campaign, in direct con- 
sequence of the Company's attempts to avoid the heavy 
expense of war, and of its dread of every accession of 
responsibility. Men of the Lawrence and Nicholson stamp 
preferred to thrash the evil-doer, without malice on either 
side, for the first offence, rather than lure him to destruction 
by displaying too obviously a desire for peace. 

The Burmese began hostilities by seizing a British post 
and killing a number of the garrison. Their next step was 
to annex Bengal hy proclamation. 

Serving his guns in Burma for nearly two years Henry 
Lawrence had many opportunities of proving his worth. 
At an early period of the campaign he was ordered to take 
charge — over the heads of three senior officers — of an 
embarkation of guns and stores, because his zeal and 
activity and his readiness to take guns over any impediment 
had quickly attracted notice. " Ah," said the brigadier 
on another occasion, " if Mr. Lawrence had been there he 
would soon have got them over." Wherever he went and 
whatever he did, men had confidence in him. 

The war over he returned to Dum-Dum, to Mr. Crau- 
furd's house, with a reputation as a zealous and able soldier, 
and a fever more easily acquired in the swamps of Arracan;. 
Padre Craufurd sent the lad to bed at once and nursed him, 
and though his sound constitution pulled him through, 
the fever clung to him and harassed him for the rest of his 
life. There was little chance of recovery at Dum-Dum, 
so he went first to Penang and thence to Canton, and as 
these changes of climate did not restore his health he sailed 
for home. The voyage probably saved his life, but he 
was never more the robust fellow of old — his father's 
" grenadier." 

The appearance of the returned warrior, gaunt and 
sunken-eyed, was a shock to those who loved him so dearly. 
That the change was great is shown by an entry in Mrs. 



1 6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Lawrence's journal:^ "Returned from Arracan, my 
dearest beloved Henry Montgomery, not twenty-one years 
old, but reduced by sickness and suffering to more than 
double that age." Then follow these words — not from a 
mother blind with partiality, but from one who was never 
lenient to her children's faults : " Self-denial and affection 
to his whole family were ever the prominent features of his 
character." 

Soon was given a striking proof of the influence of Padre 
Craufurd. Before Henry had been many days at Clifton 
he asked Letitia's opinion on the subject of family prayers. 
She advised him to propose the innovation, well appreciat- 
ing the delicacy and difficulty of the task for a young man 
in his own family, but sure of the parental consent. So 
he brought out the Bible Mr. Craufurd had given him and 
said, " Mother, suppose we read a chapter? " Permission 
being readily given, he next suggested that the servants 
should be invited. Here acquiescence was less prompt, 
but the bell was rung, they were invited to join, and family 
prayers became an institution of the household. 

His furlough was not regarded as an unmixed blessing 
by his younger sisters. Though there was no lack of love 
and admiration for their " dear pedagogue brother," his 
endeavours to increase their stock of knowledge must have 
been embarrassing. He himself never tired in the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge, his energy requiring him to learn the 
why and wherefore of ever5i'thing he saw; and his good- 
nature and readiness to help over the stile every lame dog 
he encountered — the dog being, perhaps, perfectly comfort- 
able on the wrong side — forced him to drag his friends 
along the road up which he thought they ought to go. So 
the poor girls had to submit, and no doubt they profited 
by his admonitions and loved him more and more. 

The delight he had in teaching and training was one of 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 84. 



Henry at Dum-Dum \j 

the prominent traits of his character, and in an ordinary 
man might have been offensive, but the zeal of Henry 
Lawrence could never be mistaken for an occasion of 
display. He was always the fellow-seeker, not the superior 
person showing off his accomplishments. It is then hardly 
surprising to find him devoting some months of his holidays 
to a more thorough study of his profession. An oppor- 
tunity of working with the Trigonometrical Survey in the 
north of Ireland was offered in the fall of the year 1828, 
and though the malarial fever refused to be shaken off, its 
attacks were growing less frequent and less violent, and 
he grasped this chance of learning something new. Not, 
perhaps, a knowledge necessary to a gunner, but still 
knowledge, and perchance the accomplishment might 
stand him in good stead. 

While at Clifton the eloquence of the Rev. Robert Hall 
attracted his notice, and with Letitia and John he made 
many a journey over Brandon Hill to the Baptist chapel 
in Bristol. The sister being delicate, the brothers used to 
make a chair of their clasped hands, and so carry her over 
the hardest bits of the road. 

A visit from Letitia's friend, Honoria Marshall, brought 
a new interest into his life. They met again, in Ireland, 
and he began to understand that he loved the charming 
and gracious girl. He opened his heart to Letitia in this 
as in everything, and she knew not what advice to give. 
They were both young, and he was a poor man. He 
assured himself that she was much too good for him, and 
that to expect her so to stoop was a dream beyond hope. 

Again they met, this time in London where Miss Marshall 
was staying with her friend, Miss Heath, and though he 
tried to persuade himself that the desire of the moth for 
the star was hardly more irrational than his own longing, 
his sister soon became aware, by his continued interest in 
her friend's affairs, that he had not entirely given up hope. 



1 8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Letitia disclosed all she knew, mentioned the books Honoria 
read, and assured him that religion had had an important 
part in her upbringing. The exacting worshipper was 
satisfied with the report — yet how could it concern him! 
Even if the miracle should happen and he should find favour 
in her eyes, ought he to think of marriage? His father 
could not last much longer; the pension died with him, 
and the mother and sisters would then be penniless, save 
for the contributions of the sons in India. 

Perhaps these reflections led him to the idea that 
presently took shape. John would soon be a wage-earner, 
and might it not then be possible for the four brothers— 
without prejudice to the contributions they were already 
sending home — to combine, and set aside a fund for their 
mother's use? John approved, and the "Lawrence 
Fund " became a reality. 



CHAPTER III 

(1827-1833) 

JOHN ENTERS THE CIVIL SERVICE 

Self-Conquest — Haileybury College — The Brothers sail for India 
Together. 

John Lawrence remained at Wraxhall School until his 
sixteenth year, when, to his dismay, he learned that his 
father had fixed upon the Indian Civil Service as the career 
that offered him the best prospects. John was a soldier 
to the backbone and a true Lawrence. " A soldier I was 
born and a soldier I will be," he asserted, standing out 
against the family's decision. 

This civil appointment had also been offered by the same 
Mr. Huddleston who had given Alexander, George, and 
Henry their chances in life, and the youngster determined 
to beg him to change the gift for a cavalry commission. 
He had been reared on stories of campaigns, sieges, and 
stormings, and no dream of any save a military life had 
ever crossed his mind. Colonel Lawrence tried to shake 
the lad's resolve by reminding him of his own hard case, 
his poverty, wounds, and loss of health. John pointed 
out that the three elder brothers were doing well in the 
Company's service. 

Henry had arrived on the scene in time to take part in the 
discussion. The young lieutenant, home after two years' 
service, and already marked by the observant as a man 
upon whom to rely, was appealed to by both sides. With- 
out hesitation he cast his vote for the civil service. Red 

19 



20 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

tape, he said, was ruining the army; the seniority system 
was filling the higher positions with incompetents and 
blocking the advance of the capable and zealous. The 
fool was as likely to climb as the man of genius — in some 
respects the path would be easier for him. But the civil 
service demanded the best men, provided scope for their 
ambition, and offered greater opportunities of doing good. 
Much as John respected the opinion and admired the 
character of his brother, he remained unconvinced. 

He gave way at last as he sat by the couch of Letitia. 
Her influence with him was almost as great as with Henry, 
and he looked up to her with equal love. Among other 
inducements she pointed out that he would at once earn 
a bigger salary in the civil service. A sordid motive! 
Not when such a prospect loomed before him — an aged 
mother and helpless girls absolutely dependent on the 
money sent home by the sons and brothers in India. 

He quietly crushed his ambitions and, facing the sacrifice 
bravely, set forth in July 1827 for Haileybury College, 
the training ground for the East India Company's Civil 
Service, and Henry went with him to coach him for the 
preliminary examination. 

A story typical of the " pedagogue brother " is told by 
Mr, Bos worth Smith. Before the examination took place 
Henry endeavoured to instil into the reluctant mind informa- 
tion upon certain points which his experience of India had 
taught him to regard as important for aspirants to the 
civil service. John was less willing to receive than Henry 
to give — and who does not sympathise with the boy of 
sixteen! A looker-on, anxious for the prospects of the 
son whom he had brought upon the same errand, observed 
that the elder brother's sowing was not upon willing soil, 
and begged him to transfer a little of the seed to his own 
son. Ever ready to be of use Henry gladly took the 
stranger in tow, with the result that as these very subjects 



John Enters the Civil Service 21 

did occupy an important place in the question list, his new 
pupil came out of the ordeal better than did John, and 
attributed his good fortune mainly to Lawrence's advice. 

John remained two years at Haileybury and by his own 
account was " neither very idle nor very industrious." 
He won prizes for history, political economy, and Bengali, 
but it cannot be said that he showed promise of a brilliant 
future, and he was by no means regarded as one who would 
do great credit to the college or to the able staff that ruled 
its destinies. Indeed, his friend Hallet Batten, son of the 
Principal of Haileybury, was occasionally reproved by his 
father for " loafing about with that tall Irishman instead 
of sticking to the more regular students." 

John's revenge was effective. He finally came out in 
front of young Batten, and in reply to the Principal's 
good-humoured congratulation, " Oh, you rascal, you've 
got out ahead of my son! " John gravely observed, "Ah, 
Dr. Batten, you see it's all conduct ; I fear Hallet has not 
been quite so steady as I." ^ 

Thirty years later when all eyes were fixed upon John 
Lawrence, who, as Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, 
was raising armies greater than any he would have com- 
manded had he become a soldier, Mr. Hallet Batten chanced 
to be home on furlough. He visited Dean Le Bas, who had 
been Professor of Mathematics when John was at Hailey- 
bury, and the old man asked : — 

" Hallet, who is this John Lawrence of whom I hear so 
much?" 

" Don't you remember? " Batten replied, " a tall thin 
Irishman with whom I much consorted, who once kept an 
Irish revel of bonfires on the grass-plot, and whom you 
forgave on account of his Orange zeal and his fun? " 

"Ah! " said the Dean, " I remember the man; not a 
bad sort of fellow." He then laughed aloud and drily 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 26-27. 



22 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

inquired, " Bnt what has become of all our good 
students? " 

By the time that John had completed the Haileybury 
course, Henry's furlough was nearly ended, and the 
brothers arranged to sail together. To Mrs, Lawrence 
and Letitia the intervening weeks passed rapidly, and their 
hearts were sore at the prospect of another parting. One 
by one the youngsters had left the nest, but custom could 
not blunt the keenness of the mother's distress. The 
younger brother had the wonders of the marvellous East 
before him, but the elder had tasted of the strangeness and 
had learned to value his home the more, and the parting 
was harder for him. Moreover, Henry knew that his 
father was sinking and that he could not hope to see him 
again; and his love for Letitia had grown in intensity 
while he had been at home. Correspondence had been a 
poor substitute for the companionship, for which absence 
had made him long, and now, the realisation having ex- 
ceeded the expectation, he was loth to go. Also, he was 
leaving Honoria Marshall, as he thought, for ever. 

The boat sailed on September 2, 1829. John, never a 
good sailor, was so ill that his life was in danger. For six 
weeks he could not even leave his berth, and the common 
study of the native languages, planned for the voyage, had 
to be abandoned. 

The brothers parted at Calcutta, John being obliged to 
remain at Fort William until he had passed an examination 
in the vernacular, while Henry journeyed north-west to 
Kurnal on the Sikh frontier. Here he joined his new 
company of artillery, and here was also stationed the 
2nd Cavalry, the regiment of which George Lawrence was 
adjutant. For eighteen months Henry lived with his 
brother, and his time was divided between professional 
duties, study of the languages, and exercise in the cavalry 
riding-school. He was continually on horseback, not only 



John Enters the Civil Service 23 

because he loved the exercise, but also because he had the 
foresight to equip himself for the future. Unsparing of 
himself, he was as good a horsemaster as a horseman. In 
a letter to his favourite correspondent he speaks of his 
Arab : "I take so much care of him that I suspect he will 
die. That he may come in cool I always walk him the last 
three or four miles, and as I walk myself the first hour, it 
is in the middle of the journey that I get over the ground." 

Towards the close of the year 1831 he was transferred 
to a troop of the horse artillery at Cawnpore. In the 
opinion of the officers stationed in that town Henry 
Lawrence was unsociable. To a m.an of his temperament, 
sensitive and overflowing with kindness and affection, 
the knowledge that he was so regarded must have been 
painful. The study needed to master the details of his 
profession kept him to some extent apart, but the reserve 
arose mainly from a resolve not to waste a penny that 
might be devoted to the " Lawrence Fund," of whose 
existence only Letitia and the brothers knew. Alexander, 
George, and John were denying themselves equally for 
this purpose. But though considered unsociable he won 
respect. The officer of the horse artillery, from whose 
statement this opinion is taken, adds that, " In case of a 
row or dispute, I am inclined to think that all of us young 
officers would have deferred to his decision." ^ 

The day for testing his proficiency in Hindustani came 
round within a week or two of his twenty-sixth birthday. 
Such an ordeal must have been more trying to the nerves 
of Henry than to the more phlegmatic nature of John, 
In a letter to Letitia the former admits the nervousness, 
though sure of passing, " but the little bit of pride that 
you have held up as an unbecoming feature in my moral 
visage would be sorely touched by a failure." 

He did pass, and was recommended to the notice of the 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. io8. 



24 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Commander-in-Chief in terms of strong approbation. He 
obtained the post of interpreter and, a few months 
later, through the intervention of his brother George, he 
received an appointment as assistant revenue surveyor in 
the North- West Provinces. 



CHAPTER IV 

(1830-1838) 

JOHN AT DELHI 

As District Officer — " John Lawrence knows Everything " — 
His Strength, Resolution, and Resource. 

We left John Lawrence, in his nineteenth year, at Fort 
WilHam, completing his studies. The voyage and change 
of climate had not agreed with him, and he longed to be 
back in England. Having sufficiently mastered both 
Urdu and Persian he applied for work, and the field for 
which he expressed preference was Delhi, the real capital 
of Hindustan. In the light of his later achievements, no 
surprise will be felt that he should have chosen a district 
in which the work of the Company's servants was both 
hard and dangerous. In no other spot would he have been 
able to learn so much, and in after years the choice proved 
fortunate for England. 

The request being granted, he became " assistant judge, 
magistrate, and collector of the city and its environs." 
The average district contained more than two thousand 
villages, and the " Head of a District " — as the " Magistrate 
and Collector " is termed — ^governs a territory larger and 
more populous than most English counties. A group of 
districts forms a division controlled by a Commissioner, 
who is the local representative of the Lieutenant-Governor. 
As one of the assistants to the officer in charge of the Delhi 
Territory, the boy, who a few months ago had been subject 
to his college rules and bounds, now helped to control a 

25 



26 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

kingdom with a population of more than half a million and 
an area of eight hundred square miles. 

Fortunately Delhi was not administered by Regulations. 
Freedom of action and plenty of scope for the strong man 
gave the young civilian what he wanted. Men, rather 
than measures, were needed; men of the right stamp, for 
the Oriental understands the one and not the other. 
Rarely can an Englishman estimate in true proportion the 
clashing interests, the immovable and seemingly incom- 
prehensible prejudices of the conflicting races, creeds, 
and castes that form the Indian communities. General 
measures, adopted in Bengal in accordance with ideas of 
Western progress and reform, had been found to enrich 
the small minority and do harm to the majority. And 
all this with the best of intentions. Neither regulations 
nor decrees of the Governor-General in Council could do 
so much as the personal influence of the small army of 
magistrates, collectors, and similar ofificials, who had the 
heart, the brain, and the will to understand and sympathise 
with those under their charge. The native of Hindustan 
is apprehensive of the exercise of authority — rendered so 
by centuries of oppression — and incapable of grasping the 
idea (except when aided by a personal knowledge of, and 
confidence in, the official placed over him) that his rulers 
should, with no ulterior motive, trouble to labour for his 
good. So he refuses to assist in their inquiries, actively 
or passively frustrating all attempts to lay bare the truth 
under the impression that the less his rulers know of his 
affairs the less will he suffer. The more unscrupulous of 
the native oificials and police, and of educated natives 
generally, take advantage of the situation to attain their 
own ends, by urging as the views and wishes of the people 
those measures most profitable to themselves. 

Given ability, energy, and conscientiousness — qualities 
by no means rare in the Indian Civil Service — the man on 



John at Delhi 27 

the spot can probe the hearts of his people and remedy 
many evils. The work was exacting, but well suited to 
the taste of John Lawrence. Before long the chief men 
in his district would gather round the new sahib in the 
evening and unfold the stories of their lives, opening out 
with more and more confidence until he knew their virtues 
and vices and understood their ways of reasoning better 
than the average civilian of thrice his length of service. 
After four years in Delhi he was transferred to Paniput in 
the northern division of the same territory, and two years 
later he was placed in charge of the Gurgaon district as 
acting-magistrate and collector. 

The many-sidedness of a collector's duties — " a kind of 
terrestrial providence " over some half million members of 
widely -differing races, creeds, and castes — has been thus 
summed up by a writer in the Calcutta Review. The 
collector must be " publican, auctioneer, sheriff, road- 
maker, timber-dealer, recruiting-sergeant, slayer of wild 
beasts, bookseller, cattle-breeder, postmaster, vaccinator, 
discounter of bills, and registrar," besides performing 
duties incapable of classification. Part of the work must 
be done indoors, in the unbearable cutcherry, but the 
greater portion out in the open, on the spot. Here John 
Lawrence learned to rely upon himself, and he was on 
occasion able by force of character alone to overawe a 
whole community of sympathisers with murder. In com- 
mon with his brother and John Nicholson he had the 
rare gift of power to compel men to obey him against their 
inclination and often against their interests. 

In speaking of the youthful days at Paniput he once 
said : ^ "In those days I met with many curious adventures, 
and on some occasions was in considerable peril of my life, 
but good fortune and careful management combined 
brought me successfully out of them all." In later years 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 55. 



28 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

his children would crowd round him to demand the Sunday 
budget of stories of these stirring times, of the righting of 
wrongs, the tracking of evil-doers, the breaking up of 
Thug and Dacoit bands, of narrow escapes from man and 
beast. Mingled with the heroic would be more peaceful 
tales, full of quiet humour, treating of the exploits of his 
favourite dogs and horses — the only extravagances in 
which he ever indulged. " Chanda," his favourite horse, 
cost him his all, two thousand rupees, a sum refused at 
first by the dealer, who demanded three thousand and, 
contrary to Oriental custom, would not budge. Unable 
to raise so much, Lawrence turned away, but the longing 
for the horse gave him no rest. He tried again, this time 
with the money in two bags, and as the sight of the silver 
was not to be resisted, Chanda becam.e his. The Arab 
soon proved his worth. Riding hard across country one 
night Chanda pulled up short and refused to respond to 
the spur. He had stopped on the brink of a tank thirty 
feet deep.^ Lawrence was in the habit of keeping the 
horse loose in the tent and he used to tell how the natives 
on entering would first make their salaam to him and next 
to Chanda. 

Fifty years after his removal from Paniput the men of 
the district would talk of his prowess and courage and 
amazing strength; and tales are still told to the children's 
children of Jan Larens, the demi-god, the hero in the 
Homeric sense, the incomprehensible sahib who could, get 
the better of the wiles of their forefathers by simple 
adherence to the truth. 

By showing himself their master he was able to gain the 
warm approval of men to whom strength and daring most 
appealed, who used to confide to the sahib their regret 
that the days had gone by when " the buffalo belonged to 
him who held the bludgeon." 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 53-54. 



John at Delhi 29 

The following description of John Lawrence at Paniput 
has been given by his friend Mr. Charles Raikes : — 

" He usually wore a sort of compromise between English 
and Indian costume, had his arms ready at hand, and led a 
life as primus inter pares, rather than a foreigner or a 
despot among the people. Yet a despot he was, as any 
man soon discovered who was bold enough or silly enough 
to question his legitimate authority — a despot, but full of 
kindly feelings and devoted heart and soul to duty and 
hard work. . . . ' Jan Larens,' said the people, ' sub janta,' 
that is, knows everything." 

The previous collector of Paniput had not been very 
capable, and the natives had evidently imposed upon him. 
An energetic and resolute administrator, coming after one 
who was lax, must inevitably have an uphill task ; and the 
Jats and Mohammedans sighed for the easy-going prede- 
cessor, who had been less hard on evil-doers. " Sahib 

is gone," said a fakir, " and everybody regrets him; for 
one, Larens Sahib, has come in his place, who is quite a 
different sort of man." ^ 

The collection of revenue was, naturally enough, re- 
sented. Englishmen even are not yet educated to a 
cheerful acquiescence in this respect, though taxes may 
not be demanded at the bayonet's point. In the old days 
the men of Paniput would pay whenever their rulers were 
strong enough to enforce payment, and unless force was 
brought to bear they could see no adequate reason for 
the sacrifice. The new collector resolved to make the 
attempt to do without the employment of force except 
in a passive sense. 

One night he and his police surrounded a walled village 
whose inhabitants had persistently refused to pay. At 
dawn the village lads began to drive the cattle to the 
pastures, and were turned back with the news that Larens 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 52. 

C 



30 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Sahib could not allow their cows to graze on the govern- 
ment's pastures until the land-tax was paid. Nothing 
further was done ; the police squatted on the tracks leading 
from the village, and smoked and discussed the new sahib 
and his curious ways, and wondered if the village would 
give in. The village elders were astounded ; under the old 
rulers there had been no lack of variety in the methods of 
collecting the revenue, but they hardly knew what to think 
of this new move. Attempts were made to break the 
cordon by stealth, but the police were alert. They had to 
be alert for Jan Larens was close at hand. Then the cattle 
began to complain, and at length a deputation came forth 
with humility, protesting their sorrow in that they had no 
ready cash wherewith to pay and profuse in assurances 
for the future if only the Protector of the Poor would 
permit their cattle to graze. Talk was unavailing, so in 
the early afternoon the arrears were paid and the cattle 
released. The lesson served for all the villages of that 
district and there was no further trouble. 

Another story from the same source^ illustrates the 
physical strength for which the Paniput magistrate was 
noted, a possession that undoubtedly endeared him to the 
Jats. One of his villages had caught lire and there was no 
chance of saving it. An old lady, whose sole property 
was a huge sack of corn, finding that the neighbours were 
too busy to drag her treasure into safety, philosophically 
concluded that life would not be worth living with nothing 
to support it. Seating herself on the sack she awaited 
the end, when in rushed Jan Larens, the alien magistrate, 
the Thor, the Hercules, the jest-loving Rustum, who 
certainly " laid about him as he willed." He grasped the 
mighty sack and carried it away and the old woman decided 
to live. Next day — hearing, perhaps, of the wonder excited 
by the feat — Lawrence sallied forth to test his strength 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. chap. iii. 



John at Delhi 31 

on this same grain sack. The stimulus of urgent need 
being lacking, he actually found himself unable to lift the 
sack from the ground. 

A certain landholder refused to pay his taxes and the 
collector-magistrate rode thirty miles in order to persuade 
him. The place was walled, the gates were barred, and the 
Englishman could not enter. He had with him an orderly 
whom he despatched to Delhi with a request for the guns. 
Then, though it was the hottest season of the year, he sat 
down alone by the main gate, where he stayed all day in 
the glare of the sun, while the chieftain cursed him in his 
heart and was yet afraid to strike though the alien was 
at his mercy. Still no help came. At last the head of 
a neighbouring village offered his assistance. It was ac- 
cepted; the ally's retainers formed up before the gates, 
and the disciple of Pistol, seeing that the bull-dog sahib 
would not be shaken off, gave in, paid the land-tax and a 
fine into the bargain, and, in all probability, became a crony 
of the collector-sahib. As for the ally, more than twenty 
years later, when Delhi had fallen by the exertions of Sir 
John Lawrence, a list of rebel leaders condemned to death 
was given him to sign. Glancing over the names he was 
attracted by that of the man who had thus come to his aid, 
and that rebel's life was saved. 

The story of the murder of Ram Singh by his brother 
Bulram proves that John Lawrence would have made an 
admirable detective had that highly desirable career been 
his. The finding and examination of the body by torch- 
light ; the trail of the footsteps in the sandy soil, with the 
discovery that one of the assassins must have made a 
circuit to cut off the flying victim and head him towards 
the rest of the gang; the deduction therefrom that, as 
Ram Singh, the victim, was fleet of foot, the murderer 
must have been a particularly speedy man; the recollec- 
tion that post-runners are selected for their running 



32 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

powers, and that Ram Singh's brother, with whom he had 
quarrelled, was a postman — all these details are far more 
readable than those of the average detective story. So is 
the account of the night search for Bulram and the finding 
of the man calmly smoking in the post-house. 

" I went up and addressed him on some indifferent 
topics, but so calm and self-possessed were his replies that 
I began to think I was in error. . . . However, taking up a 
lamp I looked steadily at his countenance. Though he 
knew my gaze was on him, he never moved a muscle, but 
continued smoking with apparent apathy, while his eye, 
which met mine, never quailed an instant. 

" One of the sepoys standing by me broke the silence 
by exclaiming, ' Bulram, don't you see it is the huzoor 
(his Honour) and yet you remain seated ! ' Bulram never 
moved, nor, indeed, appeared as if he heard him. I put 
down my hand and, touching him on the shoulder, said, 
* Stand up, Bulram, I want to look at you.' I had, till 
then, been stooping over him, as he was squatting in the 
usual native style upon the ground, and it only then occurred 
to me that he must have some reason for remaining in that 
posture. Bulram immediately stood up and I put my 
hand on his heart and said, ' What is the matter that your 
heart beats so violently ? ' He replied, ' I have been 
bathing and, fearing to be late at the post, ran up all the 
way.' With all his composure and readiness of reply there 
was something about his manner which brought back all 
my former suspicions. I stood attentively looking at him, 
when, all at once, I perceived a quantity of blood on his 
groin, which seemed to be welling out from under his dhoty. 
Pointing at the blood, I said, ' Ah, Bulram, what means 
this ? ' He gazed at me for an instant, and then said, 
' Don't trouble yourself, I killed him.' " 

Who can divine the feelings of that wretched Hindu as 
the big Englishman bent over him with the lamp? Was 



John at Delhi 33 

it courage that enabled him to endure the close scrutiny 
with such composure, or uncomplaining resignation to the 
decrees of Fate? What were Bulram's feelings towards 
this alien who represented the power of the law to punish — 
hatred, impotent lust of revenge, or did he simply recognise 
in him the dispassionate instrument of destiny ? 

It was John Lawrence who, when his friend, William 
Fraser, had been murdered at Delhi, rode over at once 
and took up a clue that had been cast aside by his colleagues. 
The tracks of a horse had been traced to some cross-roads, 
where they suddenly ended. Guided by a native's casual 
remark, he entered the Delhi house of the Nawab of 
Ferozpore who had a grudge against Fraser. " Sauntering 
up to a spot in the yard where a fine chestnut horse was 
tethered, he began to examine his points and soon noticed 
some nailmarks on a part of the hoof where they are not 
usually found. It flashed across him in an instant that 
Dick Turpin had sometimes reversed the shoes of his 
horse's hoofs to put pursuers off the scent." Here might 
be the explanation of the abrupt ending of the trail. A 
trooper appeared. " ' This is a nice horse,' said Lawrence. 
' Yes,' replied the man, ' but he is very weak and off his 
feed; he has been able to do no work for a week.' " 

The collector quietly gave the animal a feed of corn which 
was greedily eaten, and the trooper was arrested. One 
clue led to another, until the chain of evidence was complete, 
and the Nawab and his retainer were convicted and hanged. 

Leading a posse of native police one moonlight night to 
effect the arrest of a robber and murderer, he was halted 
by a river, broad and rapid, across which the men refused 
to swim their horses. 

" Well, you cowards may do what you like, but I am 
going," said the young magistrate, as he started across. 
The native officer swore that he would not leave his sahib 
though he feared they would both be drowned. Put to 



34 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

shame, the remainder followed the lead, and though 
Lawrence and several others were thrown by their 
frightened steeds, all got across except one man. 

" You see we are all safe after all," the magistrate 
commented. 

" No, the rassaldar is drowned," said a policeman. 

" What, the bravest of the whole lot of you ! Let us go 
in again and see if we can save him." 

But the white man had to make the attempt alone. He 
found and saved the drowning rassaldar at the expense of 
a bad kick from the horse. Injured as he was he hastened 
to the village, only to find that his quarry had been warned. 
The murderer was soon discovered, however, concealed on 
a flat roof, and the Englishman chased him along the tops 
of the houses. Finally the man jumped to the ground, 
and Lawrence, wounded already, yet risked the jump and 
dislocated his ankle. The robber got away for the time but 
was captiired soon afterwards. 

Such incidents being everyday occurrences it is not 
astonishing that the men of Paniput who witnessed his 
exploits should have regarded the Englishman as a demi- 
god. 

" ' You Feringhis,' said an old chief to him one night, 
' are wonderful fellows ; here are two of you managing the 
whole country for miles around. When I was a young 
man we should have been going out four or five hundred 
horsemen strong to plunder it.' " 

Another tale illustrating his readiness of resource and 
determination not to be beaten by any combination is 
related by the chief actor under the title Passive Resistance. 

In the spring of 1838, when the famine was still raging in 
the North- West Provinces, John Lawrence was encamped 
not far from the town of Rewari when a feud arose between 
the Mussulman and Hindu inhabitants. The Hindus — an 
overwhelming majority — objected to the slaughter of oxen 



John at Delhi 35 

by the Mussulmans, who naturally wished to eat beef, which 
was cheaper than mutton. The Hindus having threatened 
to prevent the sacrilege by force of arms, the Moslems 
appealed to the representative of the government, respect- 
fully pointing out that, as the English policy was to make 
no distinction between castes or creeds, they did not con- 
sider that they ought to be dictated to by the Hindus on 
account of religious prejudices. They were willing to have 
their slaughter-house at a reasonable distance from the 
town in order to avoid offence. 

Law and equity being on the side of the Mohammedans 
John Lawrence decided in their favour. The Hindus 
remained quiet until the celebration of the Mohurram 
Festival, when they attacked the Moslems with bricks, 
stones, and even dead pigs and dogs. The magistrate was 
then forty miles away, or by the road sixty miles. In- 
formation of the riot reached him in the early afternoon; 
at three o'clock he set off across a range of trackless hills, 
and, in spite of the dangers of the ride, he was in the town 
by ten p.m. 

" Larens Sahib is come " was the cry of the amazed 
rioters, and presently the mob dispersed, awed by the 
resolution of one man. Then the Hindus anticipated 
Ireland. Being both the wholesale and the retail traders 
they instituted a boycott, closed their shops, and refused 
to trade with the Moslems, who had not even a day's food 
in hand. The latter begged the magistrate to permit them 
to force the granaries, or at least compel the Hindu con- 
trollers of supplies to open the shops. He replied that so 
long as they kept within the law he could not with justice 
use force. John Lawrence did not sit idle, however, and 
hope for a more reasonable spirit to prevail. He organised 
relief, bought at his own risk many wagon-loads of grain 
from the district round about, stored these supplies in the 
town, and chose a number of the Faithful to sell the food. 



36 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

For three weeks the Hindus held out. They addressed 
petitions to the commissioner complaining of the unpre- 
cedented depravity of his assistant, but at last the shops 
opened, one by one, as the poorer Hindus began to see that 
they were losing their trade to no purpose. Then the 
boycott promptly collapsed, and a deputation humbly 
came forward to apologise, and, throwing the blame upon 
the priests, to express the readiness of the Hindu com- 
munity to resume its usual vocations. 

Resource, courage, and determination have been shown 
by these anecdotes. Here are a couple of stories in illus- 
tration of his humour. 

One day he received from the officer in command at 
Delhi a letter that was absolutely illegible. He began his 
reply with " My dear Colonel," and ended with his signa- 
ture, the rest of the contents being a simple scrawl. In a 
peppery mood the colonel sought out the offender, but was 
disarmed when the civilian invited him to read his own 
communication, a task which the writer had to give up as 
hopeless. 

The second incident is related by Colonel Balcarres 
Ramsay, then a subaltern. After describing the finding 
of Mr, Lawrence in a favourite attitude, " pulling up his 
shirt sleeves and feeling his muscles," he relates that: 
" I happened to be in the same howdah with him and three 
or four others, on the back of an elephant going through 
the streets of Lahore, while our army was encamped before 
it. Seeing an officer approaching in solitary state on 
another elephant, he drove his alongside of it and said to 
me, ' Youngster, we are rather crowded here, you are one 
too many for us, there's a very nice old gentleman who will 
welcome you with open arms; now jump in quick.' I 
confess I had misgivings as to the ' nice old gentleman ; ' 
but to save myself from falling between the two elephants 
I had to clasp him round the neck, whereupon the ' nice 



John at Delhi 37 

old gentleman ' roared at me, ' What ... do you mean 
by boarding me in this fashion ? ' I said, ' Sir, it is not my 
fault; but John Lawrence said you were very amiable, 
and that you would welcome me with open arms.' * Ah! ' 
he replied, ' I'll pay off Master John for this.' The old 
gentleman in question was Colonel Stuart, the Military 
Secretary to the Government of India, who, though a most 
estimable person, could hardly be called ' amiable.' " ^ 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. i68. 



CHAPTER V 
(1833-1837) 

THE REVENUE SURVEY 

The Land Revenue — The New Settlement of the North-W^est 
Provinces — " Lawrence's confounded Zeal " — Village Com- 
munities. 

Henry Lawrence had left his guns, and while John was 
winning his spurs in the Delhi district, he was making his 
mark in the Revenue Survey. 

One of the most baffling problems with which the regula- 
tion-bound Briton was called upon to deal was the joint 
assessment of the land revenue in a country whose system 
of land tenure is wholly different from that to which he was 
accustomed, and in favour of which he was naturally 
prejudiced. Many good men have grappled therewith 
and been thrown, having found that, strangely enough, 
the Oriental does not take kindly to Western methods, 
and that machine-made systems annoy him, even when 
the advantages are plain enough — to the Western mind. 
If he is oppressed it is for a purpose and in a manner that 
he understands, an oppression to which he is inured, and 
from which he may see a chance of escape; whereas the 
ways of the English are puzzling, their rules are inflexible, 
their laws — apparently drawn up in the interests of the 
thievish usurer and the despised babu — seem full of snares 
for the honest ryot, who simply wants to be left undis- 
turbed. He may even prefer the high assessment of some 
despot of his own blood to the comparatively low demands 

38 



The Revenue Survey 39 

made by the Company's officials, for in the latter case every 
rupee will be collected; in the former there is always a 
chance of evading the law by lying, fraud, or violence, and 
the Oriental is a gambler by nature. 

That India is a continent may be a truism, but it must 
be constantly borne in mind. Even under the strongest 
of the Moguls, the Hindu and Moslem princes governed 
their states much as they pleased, but in every province 
the ownership of the land was the same. It belonged to the 
crown, and the peasants and even the large " landowners " 
were merely tenants-at-will. Instead of exacting rent for 
the grant of the right to till the earth and enjoy its fruits, 
the ruler held a lien upon the produce, and the land 
revenue was " originally a share of the grain-heap on the 
threshing-iioor."^ In time a money payment took the 
place of payment in kind, the amount being arbitrarily 
fixed by the ruler or by the revenue-farmer who had bid 
highest for the right to collect as much as he could. If 
wise he did not assess too high; if reckless, there was no 
limit to his extortions, and large tracts of land lay waste 
because there was no inducement to cultivate it. 

The East India Company had done its utmost to place 
the land-tax on a more satisfactory and scientific basis — 
that is, in accordance with European ideas. They had not 
made a success of the attempt. Taking previous assess- 
ments as their basis, they would exact, say, forty rupees 
from a cultivator from whom fifty had been demanded by 
the late ruler, without taking into account that where the 
man was assessed at fifty rupees the agents and revenue- 
farmers would take a hundred if they could get it or, 
perhaps, let him off for twenty-five in a bad season. But, 
English fashion, the Company wanted forty rupees, neither 
more nor less, from those who were assessed at forty. The 
result was that many escaped too lightly, and far more 
^ Baden-Powell, Land Revenue and Tenure, p. t,^. 



40 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

were ruined during bad seasons. The peasants, accustomed 
to oppression, without expectation or hope that any new 
assessment would make their lot less hard, were wont to 
view each change with apprehension, and the more wealthy 
zamindars, having been able under native rule to protect 
themselves by bribing the subordinate officials, were also 
opposed to English methods. The unhappy results of 
former settlements had not been due to any desire to 
squeeze the ryot. The Company wished to be just, to levy 
the amount that a man should fairly pay as rent for the 
land and the up-keep of the government that protected 
his life and property, dug his canals, and constructed his 
roads. The difficulty was to arrive at a just estimate in 
so vast a territory, thickly populated by sons of the soil, 
who lacked capital and were absolutely dependent on the 
weather, whose acres varied so greatly in number and in 
productiveness. Systems of survey in detail for the whole 
continent had been tried and abandoned, largely owing 
to the ruinous expense and to the difficulty experienced 
in obtaining sufficiently reliable data upon which to work. 

The conditions of land tenure in India had given rise to 
much confusion, and in the early days of revenue settle- 
ment, Mr. Holt Mackenzie — one of the pioneers of the 
scientific settlement — had difficulty in persuading the 
government to make the village the unit of assessment in 
the North- West Provinces, and to treat a village community 
as a corporate body. The English officials wished to deal 
with the landlord — the man that owned the land cultivated 
by the ryots — and were troubled by his absence. Fre- 
quently some astute and sympathetic Hindu of influence 
would take upon himself to gratify this longing and be 
duly installed as owner of a tract to which he had no 
shadow of a claim. 

One of the most energetic advocates of thorough in- 
vestigation was Mr. Robert Mertens Bird, and there are 



The Revenue Survey 41 

few men to whom the natives of Hindustan owe a larger 
debt. He was dissatisfied with the existing chaotic 
system, as was every able man, and he resolved to reform 
it. The problem had reduced wise administrators to 
despair; previous attempts to put matters right had left 
them in a worse state, and educated natives who, innocently 
enough, had been permitted to speak for and represent the 
community, had gained their own ends at the expense of 
their humbler neighbours. 

Mr. Bird had noticed the young artilleryman, and he 
watched him. Convinced of his genius he took counsel 
with him. 

But what knowledge could this gunner have of land 
survey? He had given up a holiday to study the subject 
in Ireland; all his life he had kept his eyes open, trying 
to understand all he saw and the cause of each effect; 
his sympathy was ever with the weak and the oppressed, 
and whenever he saw a wrong being done he must needs 
plan the means by which he would right it, had he the 
opportunity and the power. And now that these had 
come, he grasped at the chance of doing good, and gave 
of the best that was in him. That work in Ireland was now 
to bear fruit. Henry Lawrence applied his genius to the 
problem, and Mr. Bird found his suggestions practical and 
knew that he had done well to call him from his guns when 
he saw the vigour and strong common-sense which his new 
assistant brought to the work. 

The new survey of the North- West Provinces had for 
object the more equitable settlement of the land revenue, 
and Henry Lawrence's duty was to conduct the investiga- 
tion preliminary to the new assessment, to map out and 
mark the boundaries of the villages and even the fields in 
certain large districts, to classify them according to the 
quality of the soil and extent of the holdings, and to in- 
vestigate and record the rights of the claimants. 



42 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

It was a task that suited the man. He was to a large 
extent his own master with a numerous staff to control and 
to train. It involved an open-air life ; he learned to know 
the natives in their own homes, and about their daily 
rounds, gradually understanding and sympathising with 
their points of view, listening to the headman who would 
come for an evening talk with this new sahib that seemed 
to possess, not only that sense of duty and love of justice 
common to the sahibs, but also a quality of sympathetic 
comprehension foreign to the white man's nature. Day 
by day he learned more of their grievances, of the many 
ways in which the Company's officials, meaning to do right, 
yet added to the grievous burdens of the peasant — a result 
largely due to the corruption of the native officials, whose 
power was great in proportion to the ignorance of their 
English superiors. He taught himself not merely what 
to do, but also what to avoid. 

He soon perceived that two of India's most urgent needs 
were more canals and more and better roads. In the course 
of a few years he was in a position to order that roads 
should be made and that the benefits of irrigation should 
be greatly extended. " Push on your roads," he used to 
say. " Open out your district. The farmer, the soldier, 
the policeman, the traveller, the merchant, all want roads. 
Cut roads in every direction." 

He always contended that the cutting-down of outlay on 
these necessities was the most baneful of all false economies. 
He had at an earlier stage wished for a canal appointment, 
so strong was his belief in irrigation. One of his reasons 
for desiring such a post is as strange as it is characteristic, 
for the certainty of having to endure and deal with " end- 
less complaints " is not usually a recommendation. The 
Canal Superintendent, says Henry Lawrence in a letter 
to Letitia, " is therefore brought into contact with the 
natives, and has, of course, endless complaints about 



The Revenue Survey 43 

getting no water, and inability to dig their drains or little 
canals. But all this I should consider a pleasing variety, 
for, though the temper is tried, much is learnt, and with 
but little trouble to oneself much kindness can be done." ^ 

Henry Lawrence was hardly human. 

Though abnormally sympathetic he was never weak. 
He discouraged cheating and the taking of bribes in a very 
practical way, and his punishments, if not legal, were made 
to fit the crime. On one occasion a native surveyor, who 
had taken a bribe, was perched in a tree, over his chief's 
tent, an object of scorn and derision, and an example to his 
fellows. Under Mr. Bird, Lawrence soon began to make 
his mark, and the eyes of men in authority were turned 
towards him. In fact " Lawrence's confounded zeal " 
was not relished by a few of his co-labourers, who, in 
addition to the burden of double work, had to suffer re- 
proof because he was still able to do twice as much. 

In an official letter to the Lieutenant-Governor of the 
North -West Provinces, dated September 3, 1837, the 
secretary to the Suddur Board of Revenue states : — 

" Captain Lawrence is one of the most experienced and 
zealous of the officers employed on the survey, and has 
conducted the complicated process of double survey more 
successfully perhaps than any other, and has certainly 
entered more entirely into the Board's views. Captain 
Lawrence is prepared to guarantee with the establishment 
stated a complete survey of three thousand square miles 
per annum when the villages average one square mile each." 

In India the term " village " is applied to the whole 
extent of the lands cultivated by one of the village com- 
munities, of which there are two quite distinct forms, the 
" Ryofwari " and the " Lambardari." In the former each 
individual ryot cultivates a separate holding and is separ- 
ately assessed ; there is no land held in common, and the 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 107. 



44 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

head of the chief family of the community is the hereditary 
headman {patel). As a rule the patel is a man of influence ; 
he has the best holding, and occupies the largest house. 
This is the form of community that prevails in southern, 
central, and western India, and in the greater part of 
Bengal ; but although these Ryotwari villages are probably 
more than twice as numerous^ as the Lambardari, or joint 
communities, the latter is the Indian village community 
known to English readers, who are indebted to Sir H. S. 
Maine's well-known work for their ideas on this subject. 

The Lambardari village is general in the North-West 
Provinces (where Henry Lawrence was employed) and in 
Oudh and the Punjab, the two provinces with which his 
name is most closely associated. Here the whole area 
cultivated by the community is assessed as a single tenure. 
Sometimes the land is jointly cultivated and the harvest 
shared, but more frequently a holding is allotted to each 
member, and there is usually a tract of waste land held in 
common. The co-sharing community is often composed 
of members of one clan — occasionally of one family — and 
its affairs are ordered by a panchayat, or council of elders, 
not by a patel. The English have, however, introduced 
into these joint communities a headman, termed lambardar 
(a numberer — a corruption of the English word) to repre- 
sent the vUlage in all dealings with the government. He 
is also responsible for the fair division of the land-tax, 
and to some extent for the conduct of the village. A 
second native of&cial, the village accountant and registrar, 
is common to both types of community. His duty is to 
keep the village record of rights, a copy of which he sends 
every year to the district officer. 

In an Indian village wiU be found all the castes needed 
to supply its wants, from the high-caste Brahmin and 

^ Baden-Powell, The Origin and Growth of Village Communities 
in India, p. 20. 



The Revenue Survey 4^ 

Banya (petty trader) to the vermin-eating scavenger, for 
each village is practically self-sustaining. There will be 
the field-labourer, herdsman, carpenter, blacksmith, potter, 
barber (who is the village surgeon and also a kind of matri- 
monial agent), water-carrier, washerman, weaver, leather- 
worker, sweeper, and other castes. 

These low-caste and out-caste labourers and menials are 
of aboriginal or mixed descent, and all castes are, of course, 
hereditary. They have no voice in the village council, and 
they are not as a rule paid by the job, but usually by a 
share of the year's produce, a cash allowance, and certain 
perquisites. Where materials are required for any piece 
of work they are provided by the members of the com- 
munity for whom the work is being done. 

In area the villages cultivated by such communities will 
average at least six hundred acres, and Lawrence had 
guaranteed to survey no less than three thousand villages 
within the year. 



CHAPTER VI 

(1835-1838) 

HENRY LAWRENCE'S LOVE STORY 

Death of Colonel Lawrence — Henry's Care for His Mother — 
Marries Honoria Marshall — Her Letters from India — Rumours 
of War — A Wife's Remonstrance. 

Henry Lawrence was ever as good as his word. He 
guaranteed three thousand square miles and accompHshed 
five thousand. It was at this period of his Hfe that Mr. 
Thomason gave him the nickname " Gunpowder " because 
of the " explosive force " with which he shattered all 
obstacles. His heart was in his work — yet his heart was in 
England. Great as his passion for duty was, it could not 
stifle his love for Honoria Marshall, though he found in 
energetic devotion to his work a relief from his thoughts. 

Since the parting in 1829 ^^o forces had combined to 
bid him forget. The one was his duty to his mother, who 
was dependent on her sons' support ; the other his modesty, 
which assured him that he was unworthy. But in the 
survey his prospects brightened, the " Lawrence Fund " 
flourished, and in one of those moments when nothing 
seems impossible, he wrote to his sister that, " I really think 
I shall be mad enough to tell her my story and try to make 
her believe that I have loved for five years, and said nothing 
of my love. The thing seems incredible, but it is true." 

The death of his father, in May 1835, deterred him from 
acting upon the resolve. The widowed mother must now 

46 



Henry Lawrence's Love Story 47 

be his first care, and he must give up all hope of winning 
Honoria Marshall. So he threw himself into the survey- 
work with redoubled energy, to lift his thoughts above the 
ruin of his hopes, until his friends feared for his health and 
warned him against trying to measure too many villages, 
against staying out too long in the sun, and the remon- 
strance had as much effect as such advice usually has. 

At this point Letitia, the fairy godmother, stepped in 
with the magic wand, and the dejection was displaced by 
a great joy. She told Miss Marshall that which Henry's 
humility had forbidden him to speak, and Honoria was 
proud and happy to have won the love of such a man. 

Colonel Lawrence's pension had died with him, and the 
widow had been left penniless. Sir Herbert Edwardes has 
told how the old soldier could never see a fellow-creature 
in want while he had a pound to give away ; how in his last 
illness he destroyed the bond of a brother ofQcer " lest his 
executors should demand payment." The five sons had 
inherited the unselfishness and liberality of the hero of 
Seringapatam, and, even in the first rapture of the amazing 
knowledge that his love was returned, Henry Lawrence 
did not forget that his chief care must be for his mother. 
" Mind me, Lettice," he wrote, after thanking his sister 
for this new proof of her love, " I set agoing our fund and 
rather dunned John into aiding it at first; but I mistook 
my man, for, instead of requiring to be urged, he has put 
me to shame. It would, therefore, ill become me now to 
leave him in the lurch. ... I hold no claim on me so sacred 
as to put by all I can spare until such a sum is accumulated 
as at interest will produce a moderate income for our 
mother."^ In his zeal to cherish and comfort her, said 
Sir John Kaye, " he had the fervour of an apostle and the 
simplicity of a child." 

After the death of Mrs. Lawrence a copy in her own 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 132. 



48 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

handwriting of one of Henry's earliest letters to his sweet- 
heart was found among her most precious treasures : — 

" You have already, mjr precious Honoria, a daughter's 
interest in my mother's heart, and, I trust, feel towards her 
as a child to her parent. She has ever been to us all a kind 
and too indulgent one, and we have hardly ministered to 
her as we might, and ought to have done, when money is 
but a small matter, and the giving it requires more delicacy 
by far than taking, and I feel that it is because our mother 
is somewhat beholden to us in a pecuniary way, that we 
are the more called on to be watchful and jealous over 
ourselves, and do all in our power to soothe her in her 
widowhood; for her heart must indeed be now desolate 
and alive to neglect or want of sympathy, after possessing 
for thirty-seven years the first place in such a heart as my 
father's ; one that teemed with affection ; not cold formal 
attention, but spirit-stirring love; ever the same, un- 
ceasing and unchanged to the last. His was indeed a heart 
of hearts, only too kind and too trusting ; but he is gone, 
and I trust that through the merits of our Saviour is now 
in peace, and looking down upon his children with his own 
look of love." ^ 

John's congratulations were characteristically practical. 

" I sincerely congratulate you on your happy prospects. 
Honoria Marshall was certainly, when I knew her, a delight- 
ful creature. You are certainly a most fortunate fellow. . . . 
You must try and get some other appointment than in the 
survey, which will never do for a married man, as you 
can't drag your wife about in the jungles in the hot winds." 

Miss Marshall arrived in the Hughli in July 1837, ^^^ 
on August 21 they were married at the Mission Church, 
Calcutta. 

The extracts from the wife's letters and journal reveal 
a woman whose intellect and character were of the highest 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 134-135. 



Henry Lawrence's Love Story 49 

order. Since their first meeting sorrow and sickness had 
left their traces on her youthful loveliness, but they had 
brought out the womanly sweetness and sympathy, and 
the " otherworldliness " which were such strong features 
of her character. 

On the outward voyage she writes pathetically of the 
" unwonted sensation " of feeling " perfectly well," but 
though the constant changes and continual moving about 
of her first years as the wife of Henry Lawrence must have 
been trying to so delicate a constitution, her letters contain 
no complaints. They disclose a brave determination to 
make the best of everything, to see the bright — even the 
humorous — side of strange and embarrassing ways of 
life, to do nothing and say no word that would discourage 
or hinder her husband's work. 

Her writings prove that she was no mean narrator. 
They are full of bright descriptions of Indian scenes, of the 
interesting people she comes across, the kind English folk, 
the picturesque native assistants, the clergyman's widow, 
and the Hindu girls of the Orphan Refuge in Calcutta. 
Though the excellent work of this school was for the benefit 
of native girls alone, Mrs. Wilson, its founder, has also 
earned the gratitude of Europeans, for the impression 
made upon the newly-married couple was partly responsible 
for the scheme of the Lawrence Asylums, with which the 
names of Henry and Honoria Lawrence are for ever asso- 
ciated, the living memorial to their goodness when the 
conquest and pacification of the Sikhs has become a matter 
of history. 

Before leaving home she had given Letitia a solemn 
promise that she would do what lay in her power to confirm 
that trust in God which was already her lover's possession, 
to help him and be helped by him on the rugged path, to 
lift his thoughts in times of tribulation above his sorrows 
and discouragements. And the strong man was glad so 



5© The Lawrences of the Punjab 

to be guided. His love for his wife, ardent as it was from 
the first, burned the more brightly after each successive 
year. There was no disillusion. 

Honoria Marshall left her home firmly resolved to share 
in the labours and worries of her hard-worked husband. 
" You can't drag your wife about in the jungles," said 
John, but the wife settled that for herself. She could help 
him, and where she could not help she would not hinder, 
and he was so careless and unsparing of himself that he 
needed some one to look after him. While at Gorakhpur, 
before marriage, he used to be too absorbed in his work to 
have leisure for meals. He would invite people to dinner 
and omit to make any provision for them, whereupon his 
neighbour, Mr. Reade, would come to the rescue time after 
time. But, whatever might be lacking, " no man ever sat 
at Henry Lawrence's table without learning to think better 
of the natives," said one who had partaken of his hospi- 
tality. 

" You bid me describe him," writes the wife to her friend, 

Mrs. Cameron. " I will try. He is thirty -one but looks 

older, is rather tall, very thin and sallow, and has altogether 

an appearance of worse health than he really has. Dark 

hair, waxing scanty now, high forehead, very projecting 

eyebrows, small sunken eyes, long nose, thin cheeks, no 

whiskers, and a very pretty mouth. Very active and alert 

in his habits, but very unmethodical. As to dress and 

externals, perfectly careless, and would walk out with a 

piece of carpet about his shoulders as readily as with a 

coat,^ and would invite people to dinner on a cold shoulder 

1 Sir John Kaye has told how, ten years later, just after the 
honour of knighthood had been conferred upon Henry LawTence, 
they were walking together in Regent Street, and it gradually 
dawned upon the unsophisticated Irishman that his attire was 
calculated to attract attention. He was wearing " an antiquated 
frock-coat, and an old grey shepherd's plaid was crossed over his 
breast." " They must think me a great guy," he observed to his 
companion, and was straightway conducted to the nearest tailor. 



Henry Lawrence's Love Story 5 i 

of mutton as readily as to a feast. There now, I do think 
you have an impartial description of my lord and master." ^ 

Here is an extract from a letter to Letitia (now Mrs. 
Hayes) . 

" Dearest Lettice, — When I think of the being to whom I 
am joined, I wonder where such an one came from, and I 
take delight in analysing the heart laid open to me. I 
never saw a being who had so right an estimate of the true 
use of money. He literally is but a steward of his own 
income, for the good of others. But he has ever a higher 
generosity ; he never blames others for faults he is himself 
free from. You know his perfect transparency of character. 
I suppose since he was born it never entered his head to do 
anything for effect, and his manner is precisely the same 
to all ranks of people. ... No one sees his imperfections 
more clearly than I do, so I do not judge blindly, nor do I 
hesitate to tell him when I think he is wrong. But his 
faults may be summed up in very few words. He wants 
method; he is occasionally hasty; and he is too careless 
of appearances. But if you were to see how his temper is 
tried by the nature of his work, you would not wonder at its 
giving way. And this fault is clearly mending. Indeed, 
I often wonder at his forbearance. I sometimes fear lest 
my love for him should become of that idolatrous kind that 
brings chastisement on itself; yet surely I look on him as 
the gift of God, and never I think were my prayers so 
fervent as now that they are joined with his. His un- 
professing simplicity of conduct often checks my wordy 
tendency, and makes me weigh the practical value of my 
feelings before I give them utterance." ^ 

Henry Lawrence was now the head of an establishment, 
nearly one thousand strong, and as the work of super- 
intendence necessitated constant journeys up and down 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 153-154. 
^ Ibid. vol. i. pp. 160-161. 



52 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the North-Western Provinces, the bride could hardly be 
said to have a home. She found comfort in the thoughts 
that " though I may not interrupt him by speaking, I can 
sit by him while he works at his maps and papers," and 
that " his situation gives him considerable power for 
benefiting others. It is pleasant to think how many of 
those about him owe their comfortable and respectable 
situations in life wholly to him." 

" But you will desire rather to know," she wrote to Mrs. 
Cameron, " how I find my own spiritual condition affected 
by this new world. Certainly I miss very much the out- 
ward observances of religion, and its public institutions ; 
but with these we have also left behind much of the wood, 
hay, and stubble that deface piety, where it is professed 
by the many. It is a position to try our motives, for, 
situated as we are, there is nothing to be either gained or 
lost by religion, there is no temptation to profess more than 
we feel, or to deceive ourselves by setting down excitement 
for piety." ^ 

To another friend : " Yet there are advantages here too, 
and piety, if it flourish at all in such a life, is more likely to 
be simple and healthy, than where we are in the excitement 
of religious bustle. You know we used to argue this point 
at home, where I have impertinently told you, that your 
religious dissipation was as bad as other peoples' worldly." 

His assistant at Gorakhpur has given us some idea of the 
bride's luxurious life during her early days in the East.- 
He describes her great gifts, her cheerful character, and 
happiness in sharing her husband's work. Captain and 
Mrs. Lawrence shared " a tent some ten feet square, a 
suspended shawl separating her bedroom and dressing- 
table from the hospitable breakfast-table ; and then both 
were in their glory." In the north of the Gorakhpur 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 151. 

^ Ka^'-e's Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. pp. 283-284. 



Henry Lawrence's Love Story 53 

district a jungle tract had to be surveyed, adjoining the 
Terai, that belt of malarious forest— a preserve of the tiger 
and the elephant — that separates Nepal from Hindustan. 
Lawrence's party attacked one side, the assistant's the 
other, and they met and connected the survey in a spot 
where the dews were so heavy that the beds were wet 
through each night, and fires had to be kept alight to 
scare away tigers and wild elephants. What then was the 
assistant's surprise to find Mrs. Lawrence sharing the peril. 
" She was seated [writing letters ! ] on the bank of a nullah, 
her feet overhanging the den of some wild animal." 

By the close of the year 1837 the Gorakhpur district was 
surveyed and the Lawrences set out for Allahabad, the 
next district on the list. It was the fate of Henry Lawrence 
that in whatever place he stayed, during his thirty-six 
years' wandering service, he never left except amid general 
sorrow. The lads of the English school at Gorakhpur 
missed the friend who had never been too busy to take an 
interest in them, who had found them places in the Survey 
Of&ce when too old for school, and who, when work was 
over, had hired ponies and sent them off for long rides for 
the good of their health and for the joy that it gave him to 
make others happy.^ 

Among the coincidences that abound in the record of 
these brothers' lives the case of the second Henry Lawrence 
is remarkable. Soon after Henry Lawrence's first arrival 
in India he received letters intended for another lieutenant 
of the same name, of the 19th Native Infantry, and this 
state of confusion continued for years. Now came to 
India a letter from Letitia beginning " Dearest Henry and 
Honoria," and this was opened and partly read by the 
other Henry Lawrence before he realised that it was not 

^ " For every child he met in my own family, in the Missionary or 
other public schools, he had a word of kindness or encouragement." 
— Mr. Raike's Notes. 



54 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

his. For he also had married a wife with the name of 
Honoria. 

About this time a second war with Burma threatened, 
and there was also a talk of " that constant bugbear " a 
Gurkha invasion of British India. Henry Lawrence at 
once remembers that he is a soldier. 

He had proved himself humble in ways that admit of 
no doubt, but the humility was not inconsistent with a 
readiness to undertake responsibility. Few great men 
have been so free from conceit — in the objectionable sense 
of the word — yet his self-confidence was sublime. In a 
man of less sound judgment the manner of showing this 
would have been amusing, for the fear of being laughed 
at rarely deterred him from speaking out. Seven years 
before his marriage, while still an obscure lieutenant 
of twenty-four years of age, he had not shrunk from 
advising the Governor-General to reconsider the order 
substituting bullock for horse draft in the foot artillery. 
Having stated his arguments clearly and forcibly he begged 
his lordship to " pardon the intrusion and impute it to my 
anxiety to see the foot artillery, to which I am attached, 
in a state of efficiency, which I fear can never be the case 
so long as the field guns are drawn by bullocks." No 
sooner, then, did he hear of the preparations for war with 
Burma than he resolved to give the Governor-General and 
the Commander-in-Chief the benefit of his experiences in 
that countr)-. He mapped out for their edification a plan 
of campaign, complete to the last detail of commissariat, 
baggage and draught animals, boats on the Irrawady, and 
number and class of guns, and penned another letter dealing 
with " The Quartermaster-General's Department, engineers, 
surveys, roads, canals, and statistics," urging the appoint- 
ment of a staff corps, and outlining a system for " inter- 
secting the country with canals, roads, and railroads." 

The rumours of war were happily unfounded, and he 



Henry Lawrence's Love Story 55 

again immersed himself in the work of the survey, until on 
August 9, 1838, he was officially ordered to hold himself 
ready to rejoin his troop. The storm was about to burst 
on the western, not the eastern, frontier, and all the talk 
was now of Kabul. He begged leave to join the army at 
once in any capacity, and, ever busy with new schemes 
and reforms, he lost no time in sending a recommendation 
for the raising of a corps of guides, to be composed of the 
best material, of picked men noted for courage, endurance, 
and resource. He quoted examples of hea\'y losses and 
hardships due to lack of early information, and demon- 
strated that such a corps, costing comparatively little, 
might not only save the lives of thousands in case of a 
frontier war, but also be the means of avoiding enormous 
expense. 

Here he might have stopped with advantage to the 
success of his scheme. The rest of his proposals, however, 
" looked just like a job from a very clumsy hand," as the 
Quartermaster-General wrote to George Lawrence, in 
commenting on the brother's naive advice. Such was 
Henry's simplicity and directness that he, a brevet captain 
and a regimental lieutenant, went on to recommend to the 
Commander-in-Chief the four officers to be selected for 
the proposed guide corps. No subterfuge, no diplomacy 
about this. A viceroy would hesitate before conferring his 
patronage on four men at once ; not so the lieutenant. No 
grandparent cares to be taught the method of sucking eggs, 
even should the youngster be a genius — and be in the right. 
Small wonder then that the communication was pigeon- 
holed. Eight years later, when Henry Lawrence was 
acting in the capacity of regent to an emperor, he was able 
to raise his own corps of guides and appoint his own officers, 
and that wonderful corps was not slow to justify its 
existence. 

He awaited in vain the order to rejoin his troop, and his 



56 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

wife, rejoicing that he was not yet to be taken from her, 
said not a word to discourage his military ardour. She had 
hardly realised that her husband was a soldier only 
temporarily engaged in civil employ; but Henry was his 
father's son and the trumpet-call had aroused the hereditary 
instinct. A year had passed and the wife was about to 
become a mother, and what must have been her inmost 
thoughts as she wrote his letters, correcting the expressions 
as the thoughts tumbled over one another — penning at his 
dictation urgent requests that he might be allowed to go 
to the front to work his guns. Honour and duty called 
him away. He belonged to the Horse Artillery and his 
comrades were going into danger. There was his place, 
with them, and he must not stay in ignoble safety. Mrs. 
Lawrence was cast in no less heroic mould than her husband, 
and she bowed to the call of duty. " When Henry's troop 
was ordered to march, he volunteered to join, nor could I 
object to his doing what was obviously his duty; though 
I clung to the hope that he would not be allowed to quit 
his office." ^ 

More sublime even than her perfect unselfishness in those 
days of trial was the remonstrance addressed to her husband 
when he was about to commit the greatest wrong of a 
life singularly free from sin — the act upon which Henry 
Lawrence must have looked back with most regret. He had 
entered into a controversy with the biographer of General 
Sir John Adams. The exaggerated measure of praise 
given to that able and popular general and the apocryphal 
records of his marches and campaigns provoked him, as a 
student of military history, to correct certain statements. 
Admitting that General Adams was a fine soldier he took 
the biographer to task for making his hero the equal of 
Wellington, and, in some respects, the superior. He had 
no wish to belittle Adams, for whose achievements and 
* Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, p. 197. Letter to Mrs. Cameron. 



Henry Lawrence's Love Story 57 

character he entertained sincere respect, but he feared that 
the effects of these eulogiums upon readers imperfectly 
acquainted with history, and incapable of forming a correct 
and well-balanced judgment upon things military, would 
be to lower the greatness of Wellington rather than to 
raise Adams to the level of the great Irishman. 

The controversy attracted wide attention and, unable 
to m.eet the arguments of his young antagonist, the bio- 
grapher descended to personalities and abuse. Finally 
he characterised certain of Lawrence's statements as 
" calumnies " and " untruths." 

It is hardly surprising that a man of so sensitive a tempera- 
ment and of so quick a temper should have contemplated 
an appeal to the ordeal of trial by combat, but that the 
intervention of the dearly-loved wife, the mother, who but 
a few weeks ago had given birth to her first-born, should 
have been, not disregarded certainly, but unavailing, 
comes as a shock. 

Great must have been the pride, and keen the smart, to 
uphold him in wrong-doing in the face of this appeal. 

September 26, 1838. 
Allahabad. 

My Husband, — You did to-day what you never did before, — 
when I came behind you, you snatched up what you were writing, 
that I might not see it. All I did see was, ' My dear Campbell.' 
Dearest, though your entire confidence in me has been a prize 
beyond all price, yet I do not forget that you have a right to act 
as you please, to communicate or withhold your correspondence; 
and if you deem it best not to let me know the subject, you will 
never find me complain or tease you. But, my own love, I cannot 
help surmising the subject of to-day's letter, that subject which 
has not been an hour at a time absent from my mind for three 
weeks nearly. Ever since the few unforgettable words that passed 
between us, have I been struggling in my mind to decide what I 
ought to do. The words have often been on my lips, and the pen 
in my hand to address you, and as often has my heart failed me; 
but I cannot rest till I speak openly to you, and it is better to do 
so thus than in talking. On the question of duelling, I will not 
dwell on the reason of it — all that you admit ; nor on the improba- 



58 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

bility of this matter becoming more serious, for that does not affect 
the general question; nor on the heart-scald I feel, and the injury 
this does to your wife; these are woman's feelings, — men must act 
on a different view. No, my own most-beloved husband, I only 
put it on the ground of fearing God, or fearing man. I know that, 
to a man, the imaginary disgrace that attends an open declaration 
against duelling is bitter and agonising; but is not " crucifixion " 
the ver^^ word Christ applies to these mental sufferings, and that 
to which He calls us? You said, ' A man who submitted to the 
charge of untruth would be spit upon.' Was not Christ literally 
spit upon for us ? Oh, darling, our Advocate on high feels for these 
trials. The human shame attending the death of a criminal is always 
spoken of as aggravating the sufferings of the Cross; thus showing 
us that our Saviour can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. 
It is only by looking to Him that we can gain strength for these 
trials; but from Him we can obtain it. You may think I put the 
matter too seriously; but is it more seriously than it will appear 
in the hour of death and day of J udgment ? Do not imagine that 
I cannot enter into your feelings. Is your honour, your peace, 
your well-being, less dear to me than yourself? Nay, dearest; 
but when I see you do, not only what / think wrong, but what 
your own mind condemns, can I help speaking ? 

To any other fault you may be hurried ; but there is deliberate 
sin, not only in giving or accepting a challenge, but in intending 
to do so. Oh! consider these things; and before you decide on 
anything, pray earnestly that God may direct you. If I have 
exceeded what a wife ought to say, you will forgive me. 

Indeed, dearest, I have tried to persuade myself that it was 
my duty not to interfere; but my conscience would not let me 
believe this.^ 

The heart-burning, the sense of shame and unworthiness, 
as he read his wife's words may be imagined, and the 
reverence and awe with which he would afterwards treasure 
that evidence of holy love. He knew, as he read, that his 
wife was right, and he worshipped her the more, yet 
hardened his heart and told himself again and again that 
no other course was open to him. Happily he was saved 
from himself, for the artillery officers through whom the 
challenge was sent decided that the provocation was not 
sufficiently grave to justify a challenge. 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 192-194. 



CHAPTER VII 

(1838-1842) 

JOHN LAWRENCE FINDS A WIFE 

Etawa — Fever and Home Leave — His Irish Temperament — 
Marriage — Bad News from Kabul. 

John Lawrence had been for more than seven years in 
one or other of the Delhi divisions, when the quahty and 
finish of his work were marked by the same Mr. Bird, who 
had already noticed, and put to good use, the qualifications 
of the elder brother. Here was another Lawrence who 
revelled in hard tasks, and who seemed made for the 
wielding of power. So the head of the survey called the 
Delhi magistrate to Etawa as settlement officer for that 
district, and this step brought the brothers into the same 
field of labour, though separated by hundreds of miles. 
Etawa provided John's first experience of real famine, and 
the lesson was not wasted. Here an attack of jungle fever 
might have deprived India of her ablest civilian had not 
his strength of will prevailed. He defied the doctor, who 
had declared that the patient could not hope to live another 
day, and with a bottle of Burgundy and a strong will as 
medicine, he rose from his bed and resumed his work. 

He was, however, unfit for further duty, and as three 
months at Calcutta failed to set him right, he decided to 
return to England, and arrived home in the spring of 1840. 

It was not the home he had left. His father was dead, 
Letitia was married, his brothers and sisters were scattered 
abroad, but he was welcomed b}^ a mother's love, and 

59 



6o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

thankfulness that this, her fourth son, was following in the 
footsteps of the others. Few mothers have had such 
reason to be proud of their children, and when she reflected 
that it was the widow's poverty that called forth the self- 
denial of the four sons she would hardly regret that the 
generosity of her husband's nature had prevented his 
becoming wealthy. She might have dwelt less in their 
thoughts had she stood in no need of their help. The 
" Lawrence Fund " had grown apace, and the interest 
therefrom sufficed to keep Mrs. Lawrence in comfort. 
John, the unmarried civilian, was now the largest con- 
tributor to, and manager of, the fund. He had more of 
the Scottish temperament than his brothers, and was the 
financier of the family. Since Henry's marriage he had 
also taken the essentially " Irish " brother's financial 
affairs in hand, greatly to the profit of Henry and Honoria. 

By many that knew him only in his official capacity as 
dispenser of justice and overseer of labour, John Lawrence 
was accounted a stern man, who, unsparing of himself, 
would demand the full tale of bricks from those over whom 
he was placed in authority. " When he is in anger," said 
one of his native settlement officers, " his voice is like a 
tiger's roar, and the pens tremble in the hands of the 
writers all round the room."^ Yet the first journey he 
made from Clifton was a pilgrimage to the grave of the old 
nurse, Margaret, who had held his hand in the darkened 
room, and whose devotion he never forgot. 

Those who had the privilege of his friendship would not 
have been surprised by this proof of affection. It was their 
good fortune to see him at play, often rough and boisterous, 
at times gentle and kindly; now and then concealing the 
tenderness of his affection beneath a veil of chaff, for 
John Lawrence had his share of the family's Irish blood. 
The humour-loving side of his character was displayed 
' Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 99. 



John Lawrence Finds a Wife 6i 

during a visit to his sister, Mrs. Hayes. His love for Letitia 
was evident enough, but his was not the conventional 
method of expression, and a friend of Mrs. Hayes has 
recorded her surprise at his playfulness. " He would 
romp with her and keep up a perpetual chaff, finding a 
continual source of fun in the age and peculiarities of Mr. 
Hayes, for whom he had nevertheless a great respect, 
though he used to take great delight in teasing her about 
him, and saying that he was the very model of a decoy 
Thug."^ It may be explained that Mr. Hayes was a 
venerable clergyman. 

To the last he abhorred overmuch conventionality, 
classing as " cakey-men " all that pride themselves upon 
the correctness of their attitude towards the little things 
that do not count. 

The same lady tells how his store of anecdotes of Eastern 
life and adventure would keep them interested night after 
night. In the morning he would amuse them by narrating 
his escapades at some party on the previous evening, his 
pretended object being the search for the " calamity." 
By this term he referred to the future Lady Lawrence, 
and the three qualities he demanded of this unknown 
personage were good health, good temper, and good sense. 
Though not considered necessary, good looks would be 
welcomed. 

Next summer he found the " calamity " in County 
Donegal, and his life was henceforward blessed and 
enlarged. Harriette Catherine Hamilton combined the 
three requisites with the additional grace. She was the 
daughter of the rector of Culdaff and Cloncha, a strong, 
brave man, who could welcome John Lawrence as a son-in- 
law after his own heart. The marriage took place in 
August 1 841, and a tribute to the characters of the 
Hamiltons lies in the significant fact that " rich and poor, 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 120. 

E 



62 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

high and low, Cathohc and Protestant, came from far and 
near to do honour to the bride and her family." ^ 

He does not appear to have been beset by doubts con- 
cerning the wisdom of his choice, and he made no attempt 
to conceal his opinion. Many years later, having become 
aware that Lady Lawrence had left the room, Sir John 
asked where she was, and repeated the question after a 
short interval. At the third inquiry Mrs. Hayes exclaimed, 
" Why, really, John, it would seem as if you could not get 
on for five minutes without your wife." 

" That's why I married her," said he. 

After thirty years of married life John Lawrence, Viceroy 
of India, wrote in his diary, " In August 1841 I took 
perhaps the most important, and certainly the happiest, 
step in my life — in getting married. My wife has been to 
me everything that a man could wish or hope for." ^ 

The bride and bridegroom spent six months on the 
Continent, a holiday that ended abruptly on the arrival 
of the news from Kabul. They hurried back to England 
in order to comfort Mrs. George Lawrence and her children, 
stricken down by the tidings of the captivity of husband 
and father. 

John Lawrence quickly made up his mind to return to 
duty. But as he had never really recovered from the 
Etawa fever, the doctors solemnly warned him that he 
must abandon all idea of India. Believing that there was 
little to be looked for at home, and influenced by the 
fascination of the East, he declared that if he could not 
live in India he would go and die there ; and in the autumn 
of 1842 he and his wife sailed from Southampton. 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 125. ^ Ibid. vol. i. p. 126. 



CHAPTER VIII 

(1838-1841) 

THE CIS-SUTLEJ STATES 

Henry at Ferozepore — His Town prospers — The Sikhs have Con- 
fidence in Him. 

On October i, 1838, Henry Lawrence left Allahabad to 
join the army of the Indus. He received an offer of a 
hundred rupees monthly to act as correspondent to a 
Calcutta paper, and accepted on certain terms. He would 
supply no information that was not " above board " ; the 
money was to be divided between the Calcutta Orphan 
Asylum and the Benevolent Institution, and his name was 
not to be mentioned. 

Hostilities were suspended, however, the army was 
reduced, and he would have returned to Allahabad in due 
course had he not become aware of an opportunity that 
seemed full of promise. Mr. George Clerk, the political 
agent at Ludhiana — one of the capitals of the Protected 
Sikh States — was in want of an assistant to take charge 
of Ferozepore, an outpost on the Sutlej, over against the 
empire of the Sikhs. Captain Lawrence perceived the 
importance of the situation of this village, and believed 
that he could make it the base for the operations of the 
Kabul army. He applied for the post, and, on the recom- 
mendation of Mr. Frederick Currie, he was appointed 
officiating assistant to Mr. Clerk. 

The Cis-Sutlej Sikh States had been saved by the influ- 
ence and prestige of the East India Company from the 
rapacity of Ranjit Singh, who had absorbed the baronies 

63 



64 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

and principalities of his Sikh colleagues and Moslem 
enemies until the Punjab and Kashmir were his and the 
Pathan tribesmen of the Trans-Indus plains owned his 
sway. The " one-eyed Sikh " — at first hardly more than 
a robber-chief — was a statesman as well as a soldier, and 
under his strong rule the Sikh sect became a nation and the 
army of the Khalsa one of the most powerful and the best 
armed in the annals of India. 

Ran jit Singh was ambitious as he was daring, and he 
greatly desired to possess the vineyards of the Cis-Sutlej 
chieftains. But the Indian Government had no wish to 
see him cross the barrier of the Sutlej — the great river that 
divides the Punjab and Hindustan — for his power was 
already a menace to the peace of India, and they held over 
the Cis-Sutlej Sikhs the shield of British protection. If 
Ranjit Singh had most of the vices common to Asiatic 
despots, he had one quality that rarely flourishes amid such 
environment as was his. Though the owner of a most 
efficient fighting-machine, though consistently victorious 
in his undertakings, though surrounded by flatterers who 
lauded his virtues and his invincibility, the " Lion of the 
Punjab " was not overwhelmed by the contemplation of his 
own greatness. He still retained his powers of judgment 
and sense of proportion ; he believed his English neighbours 
to be irresistible, and he never swerved from his determina- 
tion to live and die the Emperor of the Punjab. 

Ranjit Singh, therefore, in pursuance of his policy to 
remain on good terms with the English, gave up with a 
good grace his designs upon the Cis-Sutlej States. The 
Protected Sikh Princes were delivered from the peril, and 
they have proved their gratitude by consistent loyalty 
to their preservers. 

There was no lack of work connected with the new post. 
Henry Lawrence was collector, magistrate, civil and 
military engineer, universal provider, and paymaster to 



The Cis-Sutlej States 65 

the troops that passed through Ferozepore. He cheerfully 
added to his other duties that of honorary postmaster to 
the army as soon as his ready sympathy reminded him how 
the men would be longing for letters from home ; and he 
was also called upon to perform the marriage and baptismal 
services. Yet, by the acceptance of this important office, he 
had suffered a loss of two hundred rupees per month. John, 
the civilian, was in receipt of two thousand rupees monthly 
after nine years' service ; Henry, who had been in the army 
sixteen years, had to be content with seven hundred. 

The district was very unsettled. Escape across the 
frontier being easy, murder and outrage cost the province 
at least five hundred lives each year. The energy of the 
new magistrate quickly showed good results; he rebuilt 
and walled the place, and as life and property became 
secure the people migrated into Lawrence's town, shops 
were opened, and a tide of prosperity set in. He was called 
in to decide a boundary dispute of long standing on the 
British side of the Sutlej . Usually in such cases one party 
will be bitterly aggrieved and the other not wholly satisfied, 
but so impressed were the neighbouring chiefs by his 
sagacity and fairness, and by his amazing understanding 
of the Asiatic mind, that petty " barons " across the border 
as well as in the Protected States began to petition that 
Captain Lawrence might be sent to settle their boundaries. 

The manner of his first meeting with one who was after- 
wards numbered among his most distinguished disciples 
illustrates the greatness of his influence over the turbulent 
fanatics of the frontier. While shooting along the banks 
of the Sutlej, Lieutenant Harry Lumsden and a friend had 
been knocked from their horses and seized by a mob of 
Sikhs, and on the pretext of their having murdered a man 
whom they had never seen were condemned to be shot 
within ten minutes. ^ " All of a sudden something occurred 
* Lumsden of the Guides, pp. 12-13. 



66 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

which completely changed the state of affairs, for we were 
not only taken back to the fort, but soon found ourselves 
released, our servants collected, camp arranged, and 
abundance of provisions brought in for man and beast. 
The headman of the village arrived with presents and all 
sorts of apologies," for the news was brought that one 
of Lumsden's servants had escaped and was now riding 
hard towards Ferozepore to inform Lawrence Sahib of the 
outrage. " These were the magical words which had 
saved our lives," and late at night Lawrence himself arrived ; 
the mob cowered before him, and the chief offenders were 
given up. 

Ran] it Singh died and unrest ensued. The question of 
war at once came to the front. It was a matter of common 
knowledge that the Sikhs, puffed up by their career of 
success, would have invaded British territory long ago but 
for Ran] it Singh's tight grasp of the reins. Lawrence was 
in the habit of taking time by the forelock ; he made himself 
acquainted with the histories and characters of the most 
powerful Sikh sirdars, he got to know all about their army, 
and much about their resources and prejudices, and found 
time to write a romance of the Punjab for the benefit of all 
who might care to learn something of the Sikhs. 

At Ferozepore a second child was born, a girl who was, 
of course, named Letitia. " We could never so have 
loved," Mrs. Lawrence had occasion to write a few months 
later, " had we not sorrowed together, and together found 
peace and joy in believing." For the children were attacked 
by fever and the little girl was taken from them. 

" How little can we guess the shape in which blessings 
are to come," ^ the mother wrote to Letitia Hayes. " Since 
we were called on to part with our daughter ... I have 
now the full knowledge that my own husband is the faithful 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 271-272. 



The Cis-Sutlej States 67 

and humble servant of his God and Saviour — that the 
heart which was always so full of every right feeling towards 
his fellow-creatures is also brought home to his Maker. 
You know how lowly Henry thinks of himself; how he 
shrinks from any profession that he may not wholly act up 
to, but I would you could see the gentle, humbler spirit 
that actuates him, the truly Christian temper of his whole 
mind." 

And while they were yet mourning their loss there came 
to the outpost the terrible news from Kabul that spread 
consternation throughout the British Empire and paralysed 
the Government of India. He sent on the news and, while 
waiting for orders, began to prepare the troops within his 
district for the work that lay before them. 



CHAPTER IX 

(1841-1842) 

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 

Lord Auckland's Madness — The Kabul Disaster — George Lawrence 
a Prisoner — Sikh Contempt of the English — Gravity of the 
Situation — Henry Lawrence selected as Political Officer with 
the Army — Sikh Co-operation — A Wife's Heroism. 

The First Afghan War was a sorry business. Leaving out 
of the question the moral aspect, war is usually waged 
either because there is hope of something to be gained by 
fighting or because there is fear lest something should be 
lost by not fighting. The First Afghan War stands outside 
this category; it was the effect of incompetence alone. 
It was not more wicked than other wars, except as stupidity 
and ignorance may be termed wicked, and a spice of purpose- 
ful malevolence would almost be v/elcomed as a relief in the 
sordid story by unregenerate human nature. 

Early in the century the Sadozai royal family of Afghani- 
stan had been overthrown by the Barakzais, and in the year 
1806 the dethroned amir. Shah Shuja, sought British 
protection and settled at Ludhiana. Dost Mohammed 
Khan, the strongest of the Barakzais, eventually seized the 
crown. He was a strong Amir and was approved by the 
people, and it is always to the interests of the British 
Empire that the ruler of Afghanistan should be able to 
rule. Moreover Dost Mohammed showed consistently that 
he was ready to lean upon England and unwilling to listen 
to the voice of Russia. French and Russian intrigues to 
embroil England and Afghanistan had been at work since 
the days of Napoleon, and now Russia had succeeded in 

68 



The First Afghan War 69 

making a catspaw of Persia, and, lending men and money, 
had induced her to invade Afghanistan. The Amir appealed 
to the Governor-General for support, moral and material. 
Unhappily Lord Auckland had begun his ill-fated rule in 
the year 1836. For reasons known only to himself, and 
never yet found capable of explanation, he decided to drive 
Persia from Herat — so far comprehensible! — and replace 
Shah Shuja on the throne. 

There seems to have been no method in this madness. 
Almost every Anglo-Indian of weight and experience from 
the Commander-in-Chief downwards was averse from 
interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs; the Duke 
of Wellington and military men in England viewed Lord 
Auckland's policy with equal disfavour ; and the directors 
of the East India Company considered that Dost Mohammed 
was just such a monarch as they would wish to rule that 
turbulent land, and that Shah Shuja was the man most 
likely to cause them trouble . Dost Mohammed was a popular 
king; Shah Shuja was impossible. 

Lord Auckland would not listen, would not delay. He 
gave the order to advance. The Persians, badly defeated 
by Eldred Pottinger, a young British officer who chanced 
to be at Herat, withdrew in haste, and there was nothing 
to fight about. But Lord Auckland would not be baulked 
of his shame. Like the man who spends his all in erecting 
his " folly " as a landmark and eyesore in some conspicuous 
spot, he seemed resolved somehow to scrawl his name 
across the page of history. Yet Lord Auckland was an 
honourable man, conscientious and high-principled, and he 
had done good work in India. He was, moreover, a man of 
peace by nature and training, in most affairs cautious and 
moderate, and for these reasons rather than from any 
belief in his genius he had been selected for the office. To 
do him justice Lord Auckland had good intentions — and 
we know their fate. 



JO The Lawrences of the Punjab 

On May 8, 1839, Shah Shuja was placed on the 
throne of Afghanistan by a briUiant feat of arms. Dost 
Mohammed surrendered vokmtarily, and was honourably 
and kindly treated by the Governor-General. The Russian 
intrigues had succeeded. They had embroiled the British, 
embittered the Afghans against their former allies, and 
had drawn the ablest man in Central Asia unwillingly to 
their side. 

Lord Auckland was no Machiavelli, even in intention — 
certainly not in execution. No nefarious designs were his ; 
he does not even appear to have been under the delusion 
that England had anything to gain by this gratuitous 
quarrel, but somehow the idea had fixed itself in his mind 
that Shah Shuja had been wronged and that his niission 
on earth was to play knight-errant. So he issued a mani- 
festo. Premising that he had placed Shah Shuja " on the 
throne of his ancestors," he went on to promise that " when 
once he shall be secured in power and the independence and 
integrity of Afghanistan established, the British army shall 
be withdrawn." 

What a grim joke that proclamation must have seemed to 
poor incapable Shah Shuja and to all who heard or read. 
He knew well enough that the withdrawal of the British 
bayonets would be the signal for his deposition and probably 
for his murder. The army, therefore, stayed two years in 
Kabul, and the position became more and more plainly 
intolerable. On November 2, 1841, the determination of 
the Afghans not to submit to British dictation, and the 
powerlessness of Shah Shuja, were placed beyond doubt 
by the murder of Sir A. Burnes, the appointed successor 
to Sir W. Macnaughten, the British envoy. A few days 
later Macnaughten was also murdered, and the old general 
in command at Kabul, though by no means deficient in 
courage, was stricken helpless by the weight of responsibility 
thrust upon him. He made a bargain on the word of an 



The First Afghan War 71 

Afghan, and, freedom from molestation having been 
guaranteed, he evacuated Kabul. In the depths of winter 
the army of 4000 soldiers and 12,000 camp-followers began 
its retreat. 

The story has often been told. How, a week later, the 
sentry on the ramparts of Jelalabad — the British outpost 
at the Afghan end of the Khyber — perceived a solitary 
horseman, half dead from wounds and exposure, struggling 
towards safety. It was Dr. Brydon, then thought to be 
the sole survivor of 16,000 men. Afterwards it became 
known that a handful had been held as captives, and that 
a few sepoys and followers had escaped. Among the 
captives was George Lawrence. 

A few months previous to the massacre, the Delhi Gazette 
had published a long article from the pen of Henry Lawrence 
called Anticipatory Chapters of Indian History. In the 
story of Darby O'Connor he foretold just such a rising in 
Afghanistan, and called for a complete reform of the army 
system. He was the first man in India to know that his 
predictions had been fulfilled. Promptly on receipt of the 
news that the envoys had been murdered and that Elphin- 
stone's army in Kabul was in danger — not as yet that it 
had been destroyed — he took upon himself to prepare for 
the equipment of a relief force ; he urged the authorities to 
push on certain regiments and to warn others for service, 
and, had he but had a free hand, would undoubtedly have 
prevented the disgraceful paralysis that ensued. 

But Lord Auckland, whose mad whim had brought about 
this tragedy, was now incapable of thought or action. He 
seemed ready to leave Elphinstone's force to its fate; he 
could hardly be persuaded to move a regiment. Light- 
heartedly he sent an army to its destruction ; he hesitated 
to do his obvious duty and save the remnant. 

Sir John Kaye discovers or suggests one reason for the 
Governor-General's inaction. An election had just taken 



72 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

place in England and the Tories, who had supported the 
East India Company and condemned the war throughout, 
were now in office, and a newly-appointed viceroy had set 
sail. " Would it be right then," so Lord Auckland reasoned, 
"to commit my successor to a renewal of hostilities?" 
As Kaye scornfulty points out, " The time for these con- 
siderations had gone by."^ England was humihated in 
the eyes of Asia ; her prestige in India was shattered. The 
choice was betw^een deepening the disgrace and attempting 
partially to recover our prestige. 

The Indian Commander-in-Chief, Sir Jasper Nicolls, 
having opposed the war, now seemed content to explain 
that he was in no way to blame. But there were men in 
the land. Mr. George Clerk supported his assistant, and 
helped him to assemble a brigade of native regiments from 
the district under their charge. . These would have to 
march through the Punjab, and the Punjab, nominally 
the ally of England against Afghanistan, was only awaiting 
its chance, for the Sikhs did not conceal the elation they 
felt on hearing of the disaster. 

It fell to the lot of Henry Lawrence to prepare the way 
of the relief force through the four hundred miles of foreign 
territory between Ferozepore and the Khyber, and he 
knew that the army of the Khalsa was ready to destroy it 
at a nod from the Sikh durbar. Everything depended on 
him who was to go in political charge of the force. The 
Sikhs were arrogant and ignorant ; they were undoubtedly 
powerful and they knew it; more than one English force 
was absolutely at their mercy. Most men would have 
hesitated before selecting " Gunpowder " Lawrence for 
such a service. " Of all the Assistant- Agents on the 
border," said Sir Herbert Edwardes, " Lawrence had the 
hottest temper. But in good truth it was not a time for 
phlegm; and Mr. Clerk judged well when he passed his 
1 The Afghan War, 



The First Afghan War 73 

finger over the arrow-heads and drew the sharpest from 
his quiver." 

The rehef force sent by Mr. Clerk consisted of four native 
irregular regiments under Brigadier Wild ; and Lawrence's 
knowledge of the Sikh character and his growing prestige 
brought the troops safely to Peshawar, the Gate of India, 
where they had to wait for the guns. It can hardly be 
believed that when — as was thought — the fate of some 
twenty thousand British subjects was at stake. Brigadier 
Wild was calmly informed that Captain Lawrence must 
beg some guns from the Sikhs. It was a bitter pill for him 
to swallow. Here were the ambitious and aggressive 
soldiers of the Khalsa, bound by treaty to help the British, 
laughing at the dilemma, jeering at the helplessness of 
these whites who claimed to be the Great Power of the 
Eastern world, and urging their sirdars to let them loose 
upon the Europeans. And Lawrence must needs lay aside 
his pride and humbly beg the Sikh general for the loan of 
artillery because the boasted might of Britain was unequal 
to the task of providing a cannon or two. 

The Sikh authorities agreed to make the loan — provided 
that their gunners were willing. The Sikh gunners were 
anything but willing, and they said so promptly and in a 
way that admitted of no doubt, and, naturally enough, 
General Avitabile declined to precipitate an outbreak by 
attempting to force his gunners to comply. He invited 
them to lend their guns, and the Sikh Government expressed 
the pleasure it would give them to help the incompetent 
English out of the hole, but, of course, they could not go so 
far as to order the " Elect " to do that which was evidently 
distasteful. So Henry Lawrence chafed and fretted, and 
the iron entered into his soul, as he contemplated the 
spectacle of his beloved country, and the army to which 
he was so proud to belong, made a laughing-stock to amuse 
Sikhs and Pathans, Hindus and Punjabis. " I have eaten 



74 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

more dirt at Peshawar," he wrote to Mr. Clerk, " than I 
shall get out of my mouth in the next seven years." 

Peshawar stands at the Sikh mouth of the Khyber Pass ; 
Jelalabad, garrisoned by Sale's " illustrious " handful, 
is at the Afghan end. Peshawar was the most lawless and 
turbulent town of the East; it had been the prize for the 
alternate victors in many a battle between Sikhs and 
Pathans, and, under Ranjit Singh, General Avitabile, the 
brutal Italian soldier of fortune, had ruled it by fear alone. 
His atrocities had amazed even Sikhs and Pathans ; he had 
obtained a kind of order, but he had not caused the people 
to look kindly on Europeans. They were soon to find out 
that Henry Lawrence and the Neapolitan were men of 
different mould. 

The Sikh soldiers swaggered into the sepoy lines and 
openly incited them to rebel. They exaggerated the 
horrors of the Khyber Pass until, after weeks of waiting 
for the guns and for supplies, the sepoys had no heart left 
in them. One regiment was on the point of mutiny, and 
the Brigadier had decided to punish them for example's 
sake when Lawrence interfered. 

He saw deeper into the minds of the native soldiers — 
felt that they had lost faith in the power of their British 
officers to protect them or lead them to victory; knew 
that the other three regiments — the only troops available 
to inflict punishment — sympathised with the rebels; 
foresaw what effect a mutiny, even of the passive kind, 
would have upon the Sikhs. He appealed to the better 
feelings of the sepoys and saved the situation. Colonel 
Beecher spoke for his comrades when he said, " We all 
recognised in him the leading man of the camp." 

At length it was decided to respond to the Jelalabad 
appeals, guns or no guns, and Wild pushed forward to the 
entrance of the Khyber Pass. And the Sikh allies calmly 
marched back to Peshawar. A fight was risked, but the 



The First Afghan War 75 

sepoys, cowed and disheartened, did badly, and Captain 
Lawrence was forced to send a message to Jelalabad to say 
that no help need be expected for another month. 

At length the Governor-General or the Commander-in- 
Chief, or the two combined, came to the conclusion that 
the little brigade had better be reinforced. It had not been 
destroyed, as under the circumstances might have been 
expected, neither had it shown any intention to retreat. 
It was therefore a standing reproach to the authorities. 
So they actually chose as general, one who was, to quote 
Sir Herbert Edwardes, " not the oldest general alive nor 
him who had most grandfathers in England," but a really 
competent leader of men. 

The choice was good. General Pollock knew what he 
wanted done, and how to do it. He made his army 
efficient, and — this deserves note — he appreciated what 
Henry Lawrence, the political officer, had done. An 
advance was made on the arrival of the guns and of the 
white troops, without whose encouraging presence the 
sepoys would not have regained their spirits. 

With keen regret Captain Lawrence watched the guns 
disappear into the Khyber Pass. His political duties 
compelled him to remain at Peshawar, but his heart was 
with the artillery, and he longed to help work the guns or 
even pull upon the drag-ropes. For weeks he had been 
nursing Pollock's army, and doing a thousand and one odd 
jobs that were not in his department. Having now got 
the Sikh allies somewhat in hand, he improvised escorts 
for the baggage and parties of water-carriers to follow 
when the pass was won and relieve the thirsty troops, 
and procured a large supply of earthen jars and brass 
vessels, requisites that had not been provided. When the 
camel-drivers, frightened by the tales of the Sikhs, ran 
away with their beasts, he bought more than twelve hundred 
camels and five hundred bullocks. Then he constituted 



jt The Lawrences of the Punjab 

himself a Commissariat Department, and foraged for the 
army's supplies. He also organised a body of men to 
carry the wounded back to Peshawar, knowing that in the 
confusion there would be many duties for the carrying out 
of which no one would be responsible. All such work he 
took as his own, and the wounded, saved from the Afghan 
horrors to be cared for in Peshawar, blessed the gaunt 
political, who was never too weary to visit and chat with 
them, to look after their comfort, ventilation, and food. 
Native followers of Elphinstone's annihilated army, who 
had escaped the Afghan knives, now came straggling in, 
and he found the time and means to clothe and feed and 
shelter them. Under his direction, won by his influence, 
the Sikhs at length began to help rather than to hinder, 
and he reheved the pressure on Pollock, as that fine soldier 
forced his way through the pass, by employing against the 
Afridis the soldiers of the Khalsa — that wonderful army 
which he, Henry Lawrence, was destined to destroy by 
turning their swords into ploughshares for the peace and 
prosperity of the land, and which John Lawrence, seven 
years later, raised to life again for the saving of India. 

Henry Lawrence had hoped to be allowed to accompany 
Pollock to Jelalabad and even to Kabul, but Mr. Clerk 
ordered him to remain at Peshawar, while Mackeson, his 
fellow-political, went forward. However he coaxed Pollock 
into giving him permission to serve with his old corps 
until the pass was won. Just before starting Pollock at 
3 a.m. paid a visit to Lawrence's tent and found him 
seized by a sudden attack of illness, so severe that the 
general did not think he would recover. Pollock went 
away downcast, and an hour later the force began its 
advance. Arriving at the mouth of the Khyber whom 
should he see but Lawrence getting the guns into position — 
an exhibition of the power of mind over matter similar to 
that already recorded of John. 



The First Afghan War ^j 

" All along the frontier," ^ wrote Mr. Clerk, " praises are 
loud of your exertions, alacrity, and spirit. The whole of 
this I know and reckoned on, and hence I sent you, as 
Government knew. But it is gratifying to me to observe 
that you are everywhere thought of in the way which I 
well know is so much deserved." 

He liked to be esteemed; it pleased him to feel that, 
having done his duty, his work was appreciated. He 
treated others as he himself liked to be treated, and however 
worried and oppressed he never omitted to praise the good 
work of his subordinates. Like John, he could not allow 
bad work to escape censure, but, unlike his brother, he 
took pains to let his juniors know when he was well pleased 
with them. He was especially delighted by a second letter 
from Mr. Clerk, who, speaking of his success in managing 
the unruly Sikh soldiery and the lawless Pathan tribes 
between Peshawar and Jelalabad, had occasion to praise 
his patience, an exotic virtue that could only thrive b}^ 
strenuous combat with his naturally quick temper. 

" Very fine is it not ? " he wrote to his wife after receiving 
Clerk's meed of praise. " It is wonderful what soft snobs 
we are, and how we like butter better than bread." 

No press of work was allowed to disturb the regularity of 
his correspondence with his wife at Ferozepore, and every 
Sunday he found time to send a letter to the little lad who 
bore his grandfather's name. When her husband left for 
the front Mrs. Lawrence wrote to Mrs. Hayes that, as he 
was going to help those in danger, she would not have held 
him back if she had been able, great as her trial must prove. 
In another letter she said : " Each year I feel but beginning 
to estimate him ; and there is such simplicity in his good- 
ness, such absence of effort, or seemingly of self-denial, 
in all he does." 

When the tidings of the massacre flashed from west to 

1 hije of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 364. 



yS The Lawrences of the Punjab 

east, the full_horrors of the situation were brought before her. 
For a space the friends of the thousands who had perished 
clung to the hope that rumour might prove untrue, or, at 
least, greatly exaggerated, and Honoria Lawrence had to 
put aside her own trouble. The following extract from a 
letter to Mrs. Cameron tells its own pathetic story. 

" I am unfit for writing and have got a load of letters 
to answer, most of them inquiries about husbands and 
brothers and sons, of whom it is supposed Henry may know 
something, all to be answered with the same heart-withering 
intelligence. I feel as if I were shooting arrows in every 
direction." ^ 

One of the slain was her own brother, Captain James 
Marshall. 

In reply to Henry's request that she should not " fear 
for me or think I expose myself unnecessarily," she replied, 
" No, my own husband, I do not think you forget wife and 
child when you fly about. I need not talk of my prayers 
for your safety ; but I never wish you safe by keeping out 
of the way. No, I rejoice you are there, with your energy 
and sense ; and, if I could but be a button on your sleeve, 
I never would wish you to come away. . . . Who talked of 
your force turning back? God forbid that such counsel 
should prevail. . . . Doubly mean would it be now to turn 
— to run from such a wretched foe, whose force lies in our 
vacillation — and to turn our backs on our friends in distress. 
No, my husband, I would not have you back to-morrow 
on such terms." '^ And later: "It would be my pride 
and delight to think that you were even a better soldier 
since 5^ou had a wife and son; and God forbid I should 
throw any obstacle in your road." 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 273. - Ibid. vol. i. p. 31 1. 



CHAPTER X 

(1842-1843) 

STEPPING STONES 

George Lawrence's Captivity — Henry Offers Himself in Exchange — 
Capture of Kabul and Release of the Prisoners — Henry trans- 
ferred to the Dehra Dhoon — To Amballa — To Kytul — John in 
Charge of Kurnal — The Brothers Meet — Henry's Work 
Appreciated. 

With Pollock at Jelalabad, the " illustrious garrison " 
relieved, and gallant Nott straining at the leash in Kandahar, 
the horizon seemed to be clearing, and hope must have 
revived in the captives' breasts at the approach of their 
countrymen. Then the clouds gathered again and the sky 
was blacker than ever. " By May 26 the credit of the 
British Government had so fallen in the bazaars of Pesha- 
war, that some camel-men who had to receive fifty thousand 
rupees from Henry Lawrence as wages refused bills on the 
British treasury at Ferozepore at i per cent, premium; 
and bought bills from natives in the commissariat at 2 
per cent, discount." ^ 

What had happened to account for this? Had some 
mighty man of valour arisen among the Afghans? Had 
the Sikhs at last broken loose, or was sepoy disaffection 
spreading? Had Pollock's resolution weakened, or Nott's 
ardour failed him? No, but Lord Auckland was tired of 
Afghanistan. He had begun the war without weighing the 
consequences ; he was ready to end it with as little con- 
sideration. The soldiers' task was a difficult one. " Better 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 373. 
79 



8o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

leave it alone then," thought the Governor-General. His 
last instructions to Pollock were to withdraw from Jelala- 
bad with the garrison as quickly as he could. 

Lord Ellenborough took over the reins, and the situation 
confused him also. He vacillated and practically confirmed 
his predecessor's orders to retii-e, the work undone and the 
captives at the mercy of the Afghans. Nott and Pollock 
were hundreds of miles apart, yet their interpretation of 
the order was the same. Like Nelson, each applied a 
blind eye to the instructions and, refusing to see the obvious 
meaning, nailed his colours to the mast. Britain's honour 
was at stake ; what cared these rival heroes for the Governor- 
General ? 

The aim of Nott was to reach Kabul from the south 
before Pollock could enter it from the east ; and Pollock's 
ambition was to forestall Nott. They refused to retire, 
and could not go forward in the face of such orders. 
England's credit sank lower and lower in India and in the 
Punjab. 

The fine spirit shown by his generals reacted on Lord 
Ellenborough, who, after all, was a soldier at heart, though 
temporarily confused by his predecessor's gyTations. He 
hinted that if both Nott and Pollock thought fit to retire 
via Kabul (four hundred miles instead of one hundred) he 
should not oppose. But the responsibility was to be theirs. 
He had instructed them to retire ; they would be to blame 
if any disaster occurred during the retirement. 

The generals welcomed the responsibility, and once more 
the Union Jack shook out its folds and the Afghans began 
to realise that their enemies were not crushed. Thereupon 
they expressed a desire to treat. Two of their prisoners, 
George Lawrence and Captain Troup, were sent on parole 
to Pollock's camp by Akbar Khan, the favourite son of Dost 
Mohammed and the most capable of the Afghan generals, 
who possibly imagined that they would make an appeal 



Stepping Stones 8i 

to their friends, and that for their sake better terms would 
be granted. The Carthaginians once made a similar 
mistake. The prisoners had not been captured in fair 
fight, but by black treachery ; they must be given up un- 
conditionally, and if Akbar Khan preferred to murder them 
he knew what to expect. George Lawrence and Troup 
must go back into captivity and trust that fear of the 
consequences would prevail against disappointed rage in 
the breast of the Afghan. The envoys approved the 
decision as consistent with their country's honour, and 
they returned to Kabul to inflame the passions of Akbar 
with the news that his scheme had failed. 

Though Henry Lawrence had concurred in Pollock's 
refusal to ensure the safety of the captives by concluding 
an ignoble peace, he had not forgotten that his brother 
had a wife and children, loved as devotedly as his own. 
Sir George Lawrence, in his Reminiscences of Forty-Three 
Years in India, tells that, having been ill from the effects 
of his confinement, there was some doubt of his ability to 
keep the promise made to his jailer. " My good and 
generous brother Henry tried hard to induce me to allow 
him to take my place while I remained with the army; 
arguing that if anything fatal happened to him, as he had 
only one child, it would be of small consequence compared 
with my death, who had four children. Of course I could 
not agree to this generous and high-minded proposal." 

George asked what Honoria would say if she heard that 
Henry had offered himself as a hostage to Afghan wrath. 
" That I was right," Henry replied, and his trust in his 
wife's nobility was well-founded. Before the captive 
returned to Kabul he informed his brother's wife that 
Henry " as usual " had tried to sacrifice himself. Read 
how Honoria Lawrence received the news. " And you 
offered to go in the stead of George, darling? I am glad 
you did it, and I am glad there was no time to ask me lest 



82 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

my heart should have failed. But had you been taken at 
your word, though my soul would have been rent, yet I 
should never have regretted, or wished you had done other- 
wise. George is as much to Charlotte as you are to me. 
He has five children and you have but one." ^ 

Early in September Pollock and Nott dashed at Kabul 
from the east and from the south. Pollock entering the 
town as victor on September i6, a day or two before his 
rival. Lawrence's Sikhs, once so insolent and unruly, now 
helped in the fight that won Kabul, and the general's 
despatch admitted that, " The Lahore contingent, under 
the able direction of Captain Lawrence, has invariably given 
the most cheerful assistance, dragging the guns, occupying 
the heights, and covering the rearguard." Lawrence's 
affection for the guns had even infected the Sikhs, and he 
informs his wife, who would probably have preferred to hear 
of his personal adventures, that " our artillery practice was 
the admiration of all beholders." 

A few days after the entry into Kabul the captives came 
in and the war, undertaken in order to place Shah Shuja 
on the throne, was over; the Governor-General's inter- 
ference had cost the puppet his life, and in the end it was 
found that there was no alternative but to crown Dost 
Mohammed king again. 

On December ii, 1842, Mrs. Lawrence wrote to Mrs. 
Hayes : — 

" It was George who mended the pen I have taken in 
hand to begin this with, beloved sister. Just fancy us all 
together here — Henry, George, and me ..." To which 
her husband adds : " Here is my own beautiful handwriting 
to certify that I am now in the ' presence.' Like a bright 
particular star I shot past the army at Peshawar. [" We 
bowled through the Khyber as if it had been the road 
between Hammersmith and London," he wrote to Mr. 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. p. 399. 



Stepping Stones 83 

Clerk.] . . . Now let me tell you how lovely and loving I 
found my precious wife and child, and how in both I am 
repaid for all my cares and anxieties. She was a good, 
most good wife before, but I'm innocently told by her that 
she will try and be better now. And my little son, when 
he rushes to his old papa, and cuddles up to him, shows 
how his father's name has been instilled into his heart." ^ 

The Sikh king and court, being greatly pleased with 
Captain Lawrence's handling of their troops, presented 
him with a robe of honour and a sword set with emeralds, 
rubies, and pearls, but the rules of the service did not 
permit him to retain the presents. To Ferozepore came 
the Governor-General, the Commander-in-Chief, and many 
British, native, and Sikh notables, to welcome home the 
victorious armies of Pollock, Nott, and Sale. Lord Ellen- 
borough had no love for " politicals," but Lawrence's 
services had been too great to be passed over. Moreover, 
the new viceroy could not but be struck by the aspect of 
this town of canvas and of brick that owed its existence 
to the energies of Mr. Clerk's assistant. 

Therefore in January 1843 Henry Lawrence left Feroze- 
pore to become the superintendent of the Dehra Dhoon, a 
post greatly to be desired by an overworked man. He 
arrived in this healthy valley at the foot of the great hills 
only to find that he had been the victim of an exasperating 
mistake. Lord Ellenborough had discovered in the mean- 
time that the appointment was barred to military officers, 
so he made a fresh " deal " and transferred him to Amballa 
(once more in the Cis-Sutlej States) as assistant to the 
envoy at Lahore. Lawrence consoled himself with the 
hope that the envoyship itself might soon be his, but when 
Sir George Clerk was promoted to the governorship of the 
North- West Provinces disappointment was again in store 
for him; he had hardly settled down in Amballa when a 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 420-421. 



84 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

third move became necessary, for he was placed in com- 
mand of a mihtary expedition sent to quell a disturbance 
in Kytul, a neighbouring state, and, having effected this 
in a typically satisfactory manner, he was appointed to 
administer Kytul. This little affair brought the brothers 
together after a long interval. John, who had arrived in 
India with his wife a few months previously, had been 
appointed Civil and Sessions Judge of his old district of 
Delhi, and was now in charge at Kurnal, not far from his 
old post at Paniput and less than fifty miles from Kytul. 
When therefore Henry was ordered to this place he applied 
to his brother for men, and John, glad to greet once more 
his chum and hero of old, accompanied the expedition, and 
was probably disappointed at the lack of resistance. 

Henry had received three new appointments within a few 
months. None of these had brought him any increase of 
pay and each had involved him in considerable expense. 
Then came the last straw, and there was excuse for his 
belief that Lord Ellenborough was treating him shabbily. 
He received a letter from the Governor-General, addressed 
to Major Lawrence, C.B., and naturally jumped to the 
conclusion that his services had at length been recognised. 
He opened the packet and was undeceived. Instead of the 
hoped-for Order of the Bath he found only the Afghan 
medal, and with some indignation he wrote to express his 
conviction that he had merited better treatment. 

But before the Governor-General could reply in apology 
for the mistake, a communication arrived from Henry's old 
friend Mr. Thomason, the Foreign Secretary, in which he 
learnt that Lord Ellenborough had merely been waiting 
to honour him in accordance with his merits. He was 
now appointed Resident in Nepal, a post, not only of great 
honour, requiring exceptional tact, but also rewarded by 
a large increase of salary. Mrs. Lawrence had a further 
reason for rejoicing. The independent kingdom of Nepal 



Stepping Stones 85 

is one of the most healthy and most lovely countries in the 
world, and the appointment was just such a one as she 
would have desired for her overworked and harassed 
husband. Disappointed by the seeming lack of recognition, 
worn out by fevers, and fearful for the health of their boy, 
the Lawrences had resolved to go home, and were without 
the means of paying their passage, when this offer came, 
bringing with it a salary of Rs. 3500^ per month, just five 
times his previous wage. On November 5 he set out for 
this little known land. 

Short though his stay in Kytul had been he had done 
much there. By the death of the raja without heirs the 
state had lapsed to the Company, and he found that its 
affairs had been woefully mismanaged and its people 
oppressed. By abolishing the farmers of revenue he im- 
proved the condition of the peasants ; he reduced taxes, 
did away with forced labour — a curse to the people under 
the old regime — ran to earth the brigands and dacoits who 
formerly abounded, administered prompt justice, righted 
wrongs, punished oppression, and put down bribery and 
corruption. Wherever he deemed wise he remitted the 
whole of the land-tax until the cultivator could improve 
his condition, and in lieu of payment he made the man 
work for the public good by digging new wells and so 
adding to the resources of the state. He himself set an 
example by planting trees broadcast ; for, with any 
quantity of jungle, there was a complete absence of timber. 
So great and so speedy was the success of his exertions 
that, before he left for Nepal, the number of ploughs in 
the state had increased by 50 per cent., and a stream of 
emigration had set in from the neighbouring districts. All 
this time he was working under conditions most unfavour- 
able to honest effort. His task was not lightened by the 
smile of official approval ; he believed, and had good 
1 In round figures £3So. 



86 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

grounds for the belief, that he had been unfairly treated; 
but, though abnormally sensitive to a lack of appreciation, 
he refused to allow a sense of his wrongs to interfere with 
the quality of his work. 

Kytul was but a little state, and he only ruled it for a 
few months, but the experience gained there made him 
more fit to undertake the great work of his life, when called 
upon to rule the empire created by Ranjit Singh, the Sikh. 
In like manner John's appointment at Kurnal prepared 
the way for a higher post. He there pushed forward his 
favourite reforms — roads and irrigation, improvements 
in agriculture, in the condition of the women, and a better 
control of native police and officials generally. Though not 
the kind of man who habitually decries the native, John 
had a low opinion of the Oriental in ofhce. The average 
English official in India has some idea of his responsibility 
towards those he governs, but the native has none. 

Kurnal had recently been visited by a plague and the 
district was in a wretched state. The cantonment, hitherto 
considered one of the best in India, had been condemned, 
more than half the troops having been stricken down. 
John Lawrence went straight to the root of the evil. 
Various authorities were inclined to condemn the canals 
as the cause, and, fearing lest a prejudice against irrigation 
might set in, he studied the matter closely. Until recently 
cereals had been the staple food, but of late rice had been 
cultivated, and the swamps, in which this crop flourishes, 
had gradually crept up and surrounded the town. To 
this fact he attributed the epidemic and suggested that no 
rice-fields should be allowed within four miles of the town. 
His advice was acted upon, and his remedy was successful. 

The soldier brother's term of service had been marked 
by many changes of place and of character of work: he 
had been|buffeted from pillar to post, from Burma to Kabul, 
from the Punjab to Nepal. The civilian, on the other 



Stepping Stones 87 

hand, had never been removed far from the Mogul capital, 
and now an appointment as magistrate and collector of 
Delhi and Paniput brought him back to the town in which 
he had been first employed. 

It is instructive to note how the two Lawrences were in 
requisition as pioneers on the fringes of the Company's 
vast territories, where was most need for strong men. 
They were rarely set to labour in the fruitful valleys, on 
well -watered and cared -for soil that had been under 
cultivation for generations. Theirs it was to take in hand 
the waste lands, arid, thistle-covered, and weed-choked; 
with their own hands to root out and destroy the tares, to 
dig and dress the good soil, and bring water to irrigate the 
land. Such tasks appealed to them both, but though the 
brothers had so much in common, a difference in their 
manner of treating one important problem of Indian ad- 
ministration was already perceptible. Though Henry did 
not hesitate to take from the native aristocracy such 
privileges as interfered with the welfare of the common 
people, and tended to grind them down, he was never 
wanting in sympathy with a class that found little favour 
in the eyes of most ardent reformers. It was here that 
the brothers had to part company and take different ways ; 
here was the root of that difference of opinion which was 
to form so painful a chapter in their lives. Great was the 
fall of the nobles when a native state was taken in hand 
by a man like John Lawrence. In like manner the barons 
of feudal England and the great lords of the Middle Ages, 
dispensing the High, the Middle, and the Low Justice, 
using their power solely to further their own ends, would 
have received scant sympathy from reformers of the 
twentieth century with absolute authority to redress the 
wrongs of the people. 

Henry, however, above all men had the power to see 
through the eyes of others and to place himself in their 



88 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

position. He held that, httle as the nobles seemed to 
deserve consideration, the fault was less their own than of 
system and environment. They only acted as taught by 
their fathers and as did others in their position, and Henry 
— keen as his brother to stamp out tyranny — understood 
and, while depriving them of teeth and claws, performed 
the operation as painlessly as possible, and applied balm 
to the wounds. His necessary reforms hit the aristocracy 
hard; they were " down," and when a man was down he 
became his friend and did all he could for him without 
prejudice to the interests of others. When he had to knock 
some one down he invariably tried to soften the fall. He 
also saw that it was good policy to alienate as little as 
possible the most influential classes, and he knew that, 
east or west, human nature is strong, and strong the force 
of habit; that in time of trouble the peasants would side 
with their old oppressors rather than with the . foreign 
benefactors, whose western methods and whose efforts on 
their behalf they so little understood or appreciated. 
When the Mutiny shook the land he stood justified. 

Happily ignorant of the future, Major and Mrs. Lawrence 
paid a visit to John and his wife on the way to take up 
the new post in Nepal. The genuine friendship existing 
between the brothers had not been affected by the lapse 
of years, and from what we know of Honoria and Harriette 
we may safely surmise that each cordially approved the 
choice of her brother-in-law, that each was glad to welcome 
the other as a sister. 



CHAPTER XI 

(1843-1845) 

NEPAL AND THE GURKHAS 

Nepal — Its Inhabitants — -A Barbarous Court — The Gurkhas — 
Mrs. Lawrence's Letters from Nepal — Literary Work — The 
Lawrence Asylums. 

Leaving his wife and child with his brother at Kurnal — 
for no European woman had ever been permitted to enter 
Nepal — Henry Lawrence reached Khatmandu by the end 
of November 1843. 

The mountainous country known as Nepal extends for 
six hundred miles along the northern frontier of Hindustan. 
Its average breadth is about one hundred miles, the highest 
mountains in the world forming the boundary between it 
and Thibet. The Valley of Nepal, or Nepal Proper, forms 
an oval about fifty miles in circumference, lovely, fruitful, 
and densely populated, principally by Newars and Murmis, 
who are of Mongolian stock, as are the Limbus, Rais, Sun- 
wars, Lepchas, and other aboriginals of Nepal. As regards 
religion these tribes are all more or less Buddhist, whereas 
the Gurkhas, who have been the dominant race for more 
than a hundred years, are nominally worshippers at the 
shrine of Siva. The}^ are, however, tolerant in religious 
matters, and one at least of the four Gurkha clans employ 
Lamas, equally with Brahmans, for priestly functions. 
The Gurkhas are the descendants of Hill-Rajputs and 
Mongolian women, and they are subdivided into four clans. 

The Thakurs and the Khas, who are the aristocrats of the 
Gurkha race, claim to have a greater proportion of Rajput 

89 



90 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

blood flowing in their veins than have the other two clans 
(Magars and Gurungs), and they wear the sacred thread. 
The royal family of Nepal belongs to the Thakur clan, 
and nearly all nobles are either Thakurs or Khas. They 
make good soldiers. 

The Magars and Gurungs are smaller and sturdier men, 
of a prominent Mongolian type, with a broad face, wide 
nose, and prominent cheek-bones. These are the two 
famous fighting clans, the usl (real) Gurkhas, for whom 
the recruiting officer keeps a keen look-out, and in whose 
favour he often rejects the more regular-featured Khas 
and Thakurs. The Magars and Gurungs won Nepal for 
their rulers about the time that Clive was lajdng the 
foundations of our empire in the East, and at a later date 
they began to form the indomitable infantry battalions 
that have served the British so staunchly. Johnny Gurkha, 
the merry, conceited, little chum of Thomas Atkins in the 
field and in cantonments, amid snow and ice, in Burmese 
jungles and on the Delhi Ridge when the cause of the 
white man seemed lost, is either a Magar or a Gurung. 
For courage and unswerving loyalty these warrior-clans 
cannot be surpassed by any troops in the world. 

The conquest of Nepal by the Gurkha tribes was marked 
by revolting cruelty whenever opposition was encountered. 
Prithi Narayan Sahi, the first Gurkha king of Nepal, was a 
barbarian ; and from his death in 1775 until the murderous 
usurpation of power — not of the throne — by Jung Bahadur, 
a few years after Lawrence's departure from Nepal, the 
court of that country was perhaps the most intriguing 
and treacherous in Asia. The only hope of retaining 
power appeared to lie in the destruction of all possible 
rivals, and no other method of rising to, or retaining, office 
seemed ever to enter the minds of the ambitious. 

This condition of affairs was by no means uncommon in 
the native states of India, but elsewhere might be seen at 



Nepal and the Gurkhas 91 

least the veneer of civilisation and a certain dignity. In 
Nepal the most atrocious crimes and the intrigues of the 
highest in the land were marked by low comedy accom- 
paniments that would have been laughable had they 
not been so tragic. Where else could such scenes as these 
occur ? 

One day in open durbar the king, the queen, and the heir- 
apparent — termed Mr. Nepal, Mrs. Nepal, and Master 
Nepal by the new Resident — began roundly to abuse one 
another. The king had been pluming himself upon his 
courage and adroitness in having rid himself of a powerful 
noble — by the usual method— when the dutiful son ex- 
claimed : 

"You killed Matabur Sing indeed! You would not 
dare to kill a rat ! "^ 

Equally dignified was the royal squabble witnessed by 
the previous Resident. Being in mourning for the chief 
queen (Master Nepal's mother) the court was forbidden 
horse or carriage exercise, and king and prince were perched 
on the backs of " two very decrepit old chiefs." A quarrel 
ensued, " whereupon the heir-apparent abused him [the 
king] most grossly, and urging his old chief close up to the 
raja, assaulted him. . . . After scratching and pulling each 
other's hair for some time, the son got hold of his father, 
pulled him over, and down they went, chiefs and all, into 
a very dirty puddle. The two old nags extricating them- 
selves hobbled away as fast as they could." '^ 

The madness and wickedness of the court formed the 
dark side of Nepalese life. It had its bright side. Though 
Prithi Narayan's conquest had been marked by atrocities, 
and though the court was so wicked, the tribes subject 
to the Gurkhas and the common people of the Valley of 
Nepal were and are as happy and prosperous as any in Asia. 
The customs, religious, social, and commercial, of the 

* Life of Sir Henry Lawrence. - Captain Smith's Narrative. 



92 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

conquered were not interfered with ; there were no oppres- 
sive taxes and there was Httle poverty. 

That this should have been so is most strange. A 
vicious court, a reckless warrior race ruling unfettered by 
any law, the conquered peasant and artisan castes with 
neither power nor spirit to resist their Gurkha masters, 
and yet Colonel Lawrence was able to state that he had 
not known " a single act of oppression," and that " a 
happier peasantry I have nowhere seen." Here is another 
instance of topsy-turvydom. Conscription being in force 
in Nepal, each male adult Gurkha is called upon to serve 
in the army for a year. Instead of being paid, they pay for 
the privilege, and more candidates offer to fill the vacancies 
than can be admitted. 

Early in the last century the Gurkhas began to annex 
the hill-states bordering upon Nepal, in spite of the protests 
of the Indian Government. They went further, threatened 
wildly, and — what was harder to bear^also raided British 
territory. Protest being answered by insult, war was 
eventually declared, and four columns were sent to drive 
the invaders back to Nepal. 

At once the worthier traits of the Gurkha character 
asserted themselves. Intrigues ceased; they closed their 
ranks against a common foe, and, weak in numbers though 
they were, they resolved to defend the annexed districts. 
The Gurkha army numbered 10,000 men, ill-armed, un- 
trained, with no cavalry and little artillery. With this 
they had to defend a frontier six hundred miles in length, 
to keep down the newly-subjugated races, who alone out- 
numbered their conquerors, and to meet a British force of 
35,000 men. 

At Kalunga 600 Magar Gurkhas held 3500 of the Com- 
pany's troops at bay for months, defeated General Gillespie's 
column again and again, and forced it to retire and await 
the arrival of heavy guns. The fortress was then battered 



Nepal and the Gurkhas 93 

down, and 530 of their comrades having been slain, the 
remaining seventy decided to retire from Kalunga and 
help the garrison of Jytak, who made an equally gallant 
stand. 

Finally Ochterlony by fine generalship cornered Amir 
Sing Thapa, the old Commander-in-Chief, and shut him up. 
For months the veteran held out until, when his men could 
be numbered by scores rather than by hundreds, he agreed 
to evacuate his fort on a promise of the full honours of war. 
Ochterlony gladly granted the terms, and, paying a hand- 
some tribute to the old lion, allowed him to march out with 
arms and stores and colours flying. His son, Ranjur Thapa, 
then surrendered Jytak on the same honourable terms, 
and Nepal regained its senses. Since the year 1816 the 
Gurkhas have never fought against the British. 

Two things stand out prominently in this war. A 
knowledge of the intriguing nature of the Nepal court, 
its treachery, barbarity, vindictiveness, and the known 
disregard for human life, would justify the expectation 
that not only would the Gurkhas prove inhuman foes, 
cruel and treacherous even for Asiatics, but also that 
England would receive support from the ambitious princes 
and nobles then in disgrace at court, or from those whose 
fathers, brothers, or sons had been murdered by the men 
in power. There were Gurkha exiles under British protec- 
tion, men who had lost estates and wealth, and had barely 
escaped with their lives, but they refused either to raise 
a hand against their country or to give information that 
might be useful to the English. Apparently they argued 
that amongst themselves intrigue was a fair game, but 
that to help foreigners even against their rivals would not 
be playing according to the rules. Never before in Asia 
had the British come in contact with so high a sense of 
honour — and this where it was least expected. 

Then, instead of proving inhuman, the Gurkhas dis- 

G 



94 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

closed themselves as most chivalrous foemen. They 
spared and tended the British wounded and captives, and 
displayed absolute trust in the good faith of their enemies, 
for their wounded walked into the British camps and coolly 
explained that they wished to be treated by skilled doctors, 
so that they might soon be fit to fight again. Altogether 
many theories were upset. Their conduct during the 
campaign was appreciated, and from the ranks of our 
former enemies two corps were raised at the close of the 
war. These are now the ist and 2nd Gurkha Rifles, 
regiments with untarnished histories. Whatever may 
have been the vices of the Nepal court, the Gurkha soldier 
has proved simple, truthful, and honest, rather thick of 
skull, but skilful in fight and in the chase, genial and merry, 
and, though ferocious when aroused, easily controlled by 
an officer who has won his respect. 

The Valley of Nepal could only be reached from Hindu- 
stan through the malarious Terai or by strictly guarded 
passes. Even to this day no European is allowed to enter 
without a permit from the Gurkha Prime Minister, and a 
passport is not easily obtained. Trading with the outside 
world is thus restricted, and the enlistment of Gurkhas in 
the Indian army was for a long time discouraged by the 
Government of Nepal. Until recently the supply of 
recruits for the Gurkha battalions depended largely upon 
the enthusiasm and esprit de corps of men who were home 
on leave from their regiments, and upon the exertions of 
the recruiting officer at Gorakhpur and other border fairs 
frequented by adventure-loving Gurkhas. The Magars 
and Gurungs are eager enough to see active service under 
capable leaders. 

Amid this strange race Henry Lawrence took up his 
abode, and in spite of Nepalese exclusiveness he so im- 
pressed the semi-barbarians by straightforward dealing, 
evident goodwill towards them, and a consistent refusal 



Nepal and the Gurkhas 95 

to join or take sides with any of the factions, that an 
exception was made in favour of so good a man, and Mrs. 
Lawrence and " Tim " were granted leave to reside in the 
country. 

The new Resident was humble enough to beg advice 
from the two men best qualified to give it. These were his 
old friend and master, Sir George Clerk, and Mr. James 
Thomason, who had succeeded Clerk, and who was perhaps 
the ablest and most distinguished Lieutenant-Governor 
the North-West Provinces ever had. The following 
extracts from their replies set forth the character of the 
work expected from a Resident, and do honour to the 
writers and tend to justify the pride with which English- 
men are wont to regard their countrymen's government of 
the dependency. 

" Your duties at Nepaul Will be twofold," wrote Mr. 
Thomason, " viz., to watch any movements on their part, 
which may be injurious to us, and to offer counsel to them 
in all State matters in which we may not be concerned, 
whenever such counsel is sought, or is likely to be accept- 
able and useful. In the first duty you will have to keep 
the mean between too great confidence and too ready 
suspicion. . . . The establishment of such an influence as 
shall make his [the Resident's] advice solicited and desired 
is not to be reduced to rule, or inculcated by precept. Most 
perfect openness and honesty, I believe to be the first 
requisite. Evenness of temper, courtesy of demeanour, 
the absence of dictation or obtrusiveness, are qualities 
which naturally suggest themselves to the mind of all. 
We profess to leave the Nepaulese entirely to govern 
themselves. . . . But the Government would be ill repre- 
sented if every valuable opportunity were not used to 
prompt to that which is good, and to deter from that which 
is evil; to express abhorrence of acts of cruelty, perfidy, 
injustice ; to give full approbation of all that is benevolent, 



96 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

honest, high-minded, and just. . . . But all must be open 
and above board. We can never match the Natives in 
intrigue ; and when we attempt to meet their machinations 
by counter-intrigue, we shall be foiled and discredited." ^ 

" I do not think you need hints from me," Sir George 
replied. " I know few who are so just in their views of 
what conduct should be, man to man. ... I fancy you 
have perceived the right line for you to take in Goorkha 
politics, to let people alone and keep aloof, but aloof with 
all courtesy. ... A Native Minister is never the worse for 
the advice (given quietly and unobtrusively) of a British 
Resident, supposing the latter a proper man; and nine 
times out of ten he feels obliged for it. The mischief is, 
that we are so elated when such advice produces good 
consequences, that we hasten to make manifest our influ- 
ence, exhibit the Minister in leading-strings, and thus 
kicking down all his popularity amongst parties, destroy 
his efficiency ; and then we cast about for another ! . . . 

" Matabur Sing is now sole Minister. I think I should 
be with such an one very guarded that my conduct should 
be, to him especially (as, indeed, is best towards all Indian 
politicians) , straight-forward but courteous ; unyielding 
in grave matters, but accommodating in minor ones." 

The advice was just what Henry Lawrence himself would 
have given to a younger man, and in his dealings with " Mr. 
and Master Nepal," with Matabur Sing and his nephew 
Jung Bahadur 2 — greatest of Shikarris, and, though a 

' Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. i. pp. 459-462. 

- After the conquest of the Punjab Jung Bahadur came to 
England to learn the secret of Britain's strength. Later he became 
Prime Minister and Autocrat of Nepal, and was knighted and 
granted new territory as a reward for his help when the Bengal 
sepoys mutinied. During the visit of the then Prince of Wales to 
India in 1877 Sir Jung Bahadur gave the prince the best sport he 
had seen. He introduced many reforms, upon which his nephew, 
the present Prime Minister, has improved. There are now in 
Khatmandu good schools, hospitals for women and for lepers, and 
many other signs of advanced civilisation. Nepal is still closed 
to Europeans, very few of whom have ever seen the country. 



Nepal and the Gurkhas 97 

murderer, a man to whom Nepal and England owe a debt — 
he was ever straightforward and courteous, open and above- 
board, tactful but unyielding, and he gained the confidence 
of the Gurkhas. vSo much so that when he raised the Corps of 
Guides Jung Bahadur sent him a hundred men to form the 
first company ; and in 1857, o^^ Henry Lawrence's applica- 
tion, he himself marched to Lucknow and joined Sir Colin 
Campbell with 10,000 Gurkhas. 

At a later date Mrs. Lawrence had occasion to write to 
Sir George Clerk on Nepal affairs. The letter shows her 
grasp of frontier politics and her knowledge of character. 
Here is her opinion of the minister who succeeded the 
murdered Matabur Sing. 

" He is a timid nervous creature, who seems to live with 
a drawn sword over his head, in every point a contrast to 
poor Matabur. ... He always gets a pain in his stomach 
when he is summoned to Durbar and feels afraid to go. 
The man with real influence is Guggur Sing. . . . Jung 
Bahadoor, Matabur's nephew, is likewise a general, and 
called commander-in-chief. He takes no very prominent 
part just now, and seems to spend his energies in devising 
new uniforms. But he is active and intelligent, and if 
(perhaps it would be more correct to say, when) there is 
another slaughter in the Durbar, the struggle will probably 
be between Jung Bahadoor and Guggur Sing." 

Even the Maharaja of Nepal seems to have felt some 
shame when contrasting Lawrence's open nature with his 
own. " The Rajah never was so civil to Lawrence as for 
the last two or three months, when they met on the road, 
getting out of his palkee and walking with him — almost 
apologising for Matabur's murder, saying he had warned 
the general and expostulated in vain, and that at last it 
was plain both could not live." When the Sikhs invaded 
British territory unrest prevailed in Nepal. " There was 
vast talk about the Rajah increasing the number of his 



98 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

regiments, but I fancy this has ended in the manufacture 
of 3000 skullcaps for the soldiers already forthcoming, 
at least tailors seemed more in request than officers at 
Nepaul. The Rajah has repeatedly offered 5000 of his 
troops to aid us against the Sikhs, and Lawrence would be 
very glad if 500 of them were taken to serve with our army, 
as hostages for the troops at Nepaul. You know his 
opinion of that army, that they would be a formidable 
defensive force in their own strong country, but very 
insignificant invaders without either cavalry or guns (they 
have plenty of guns, but could not easily move them), 
and there is not a man of them who ever saw a shot fired ; 
yet, really, people in the plains talk of the Nepaul horsemen 
just as of the Afghan. I wish you could have seen some of 
the riders, when Matabur insisted on the officers being 
mounted, and every bazaar in the neighbouring plains was 
ransacked for tattoos. It was formidable when we were 
out in the carriage of an evening, and met a few colonels 
and Komadans holding hard on their vicious brutes that 
utterly refused to obey the rein, squeezing almost against 
the carriage wheels, while the rider, in a flurry of politeness 
and fright, kept, ' Salam, Sahib, salam — nyaghora, sahib — 
bohuttez.' ^ 

" It would puzzle a professor of political economy to 
account for such a lying and murderous Durbar, such an 
inoffensive army, and such a prosperous, well-fed, well- 
clothed, well-lodged population, all crowded into that bit 
of a valley." ^ 

On January 24, 1845, a second son was born, the late 
Sir Henry Waldemar Lawrence, the first Christian child 
born in Nepal. Mrs. Lawrence was dangerously ill, yet, 
having seen death face to face, she could write to her friend, 
Mrs. Cameron: " Mary, our trust in Jesus is no delusion . . . 

^ " Salaam, sir, salaam — a new horse — very fresh." 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 39-42. 




GURKHAS. 



Nepal and the Gurkhas 99 

if we live to rear these little ones He has given us, may 
we bring them up as for Him." 

Henry Lawrence had been appointed Resident of Nepal 
partly because the state of his health — enfeebled by ex- 
ceptional zeal in the service of his country — called for rest 
and quiet. But he was not content to repose. For 
nearly twenty years he had toiled without ceasing, and now 
had come a chance for ease. His duty restrained him from 
interference in the internal affairs of Nepal. His own 
account of his state of health at this time is set forth in a 
letter to an assurance company at Calcutta. 

" I often ail, but, with the exceptions above noted, do 
not remember having been confined to my bed for a day 
since 1826. My habits are extremely abstemious. I keep 
very early hours, eat sparingly, and scarcely touch wine, 
beer, or spirits. I believe I can stand fatigue of mind or 
body with any man in India. I have repeatedly ridden 
eighty and a hundred miles at a stretch at the hottest 
season of the year; and I have for weeks worked twelve 
and fourteen hours a day at my desk. Here I have almost 
a sinecure, and have no possible temptation to try my 
strength." 

To remain a mere spectator was not in his power, and he 
turned to literature as an outlet for the pent-up energy. 
He now wrote a Defence of Sir William Macnaughten, the 
late envoy at Kabul, who had been blamed as the originator 
of an Afghan poicy of which he was merely the exponent. 
It was not in Liwrence's nature to allow an unjust im- 
putation to rest upon any man's head without an attempt 
to right the wrong, and this " defence " was drawn up 
with the idea of solacing the widow of the murdered envoy. 
The document is chiefly remembered now for the passages 
that foreshadowed the rising of 1857, throwing blame 
upon the blind self-confidence that characterised British 
policy in India, the unpreparedness for disaffection, the 



I oo The Lawrences of the Punjab 

lack of supplies, the weakness of the British garrisons, 
and " the neglect of all recognised rules for military 
occupation." 

His chief literary work appeared in the Calcutta Review, 
edited by Sir John Kaye, who has told how Major Law- 
rence came to publish his views upon military and social 
problems. 

" It had occurred to me, then residing in Calcutta, to 
establish a review, similar in form and character to the 
Edinburgh, the Quarterly, and the Westminster Reviews, 
but devoted entirely to Indian subjects and questions. 
It was a bold and seemingly a hopeless experiment, and I 
expected that it would last out a few numbers and then 
die, leaving me perhaps a poorer man than before. Its 
success astonished no one more than myself. That it did 
succeed is, in no small measure, attributable to the 
strenuous support of Henry Lawrence." ^ 

He was not in time to help with the first issue, but 
promised to write regularly. His first contribution dealt 
with Punjabi history, and after that he had two or three 
papers in each number. " His fertility indeed was 
marvellous. I have a letter before me, in waich he under- 
took to supply to one number four articles, comprising 
a hundred and ten pages. His contributions were gravid 
with matter of the best kind — important facts accompanied 
by weighty opinions and wise suggestions. But he was 
always deploring, and not without reason, his want of 
literary skill. This want would have been a sore trial to 
an editor, if it had not been accompanied by the self- 
knowledge of which I have spoken. There was indeed 
a charming candour and modesty about him as a writer : 
an utter absence of vanity, opinionativeuess, and sensitive 
egotism about small things. He was eager in his exhorta- 
tions to the editor to ' cut and prune.' ... On one 
1 Lives of Indian Officevs, pp. 288-290. 



Nepal and the Gurkhas lor 

occasion, but one only, he was vexed by the manner in 
which the editorial authority had been exercised. In 
an article on the ' Military Defence of our Indian Empire,' 
which, seen by the light of subsequent events, has quite 
a flush of prophecy upon it, he insisted, more strongly 
than the editor liked at the time, on the duty of a Govern- 
ment being at all times prepared for war. Certain events, 
then painfully fresh in the public mind, had given the 
editor somewhat ultra-pacific tendencies, and in the course 
of the correspondence he must have expressed his opinions 
over-strongly, by applying the epithet ' abominable ' to 
certain doctrines which Lawrence held more in favour. 
' When you know me better,' he wrote in reply, ' you will 
not think that I can advocate anything abominable.' 
And nothing was more true. The contributor was right, 
and the editor was wrong. ... He continued to the end 
of his hfe to contribute at intervals to this publication, 
and was, when the rebellion of 1857 broke out, employed 
on a review of the Life of Sir John Malcolm, which he never 
lived to complete. 

" In his literary labours at this time Henry Lawrence 
was greatly assisted by his admirable wife, who not only 
aided him in the collection and arrangement of such of 
his facts as he culled from books, and often helped him to 
put his sentences in order, but sometimes wrote articles 
of her own, distinguished by no little literary ability, but 
still more valuable for the good womanly feeling that 
imbued them. ... In her writings, indeed, she generally 
appealed to her own sex, with a winning tenderness and 
charity, as one knowing well the besetting weaknesses of 
humanity and the special temptations to indolence and 
self-indulgence in such a country as India . . . and 
seldom or never did a month pass without bringing me, as 
I laboured on in Calcutta, a bulky packet of manuscript 
from one or other — or both." 



I02 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Their contributions included, The Sikhs and Their 
Country, Kashmir, Military Defence, Romance and Reality, 
The Kingdom of Oude, Mahratta History and Empire, 
Carriage for Sick and Wounded, English Children in India, 
and English Women in Hindustan. 

As Major Lawrence and his wife sat in their balcony 
at Khatmandu, drinking in the pure bracing air, and 
rejoicing in the beauty around them, their hearts went out 
to the little ones in the plains, the children of the European 
soldiers, who were being dragged about from cantonment 
to cantonment, their strength and energy sapped by the 
sun, wasted by fever, sickening in the stifling night time; 
and their desire to benefit and safeguard the children now 
began to take definite shape. Often had their own eyes 
turned with longing to the hills ; now the desire had come, 
and each day they were able to look out upon the ever- 
lasting hills, glittering white peaks piled range upon range 
in fantastic turrets and pinnacles. Sunset and sunrise 
revealed glories hitherto undreamt of; the cool breath of 
the snows was theirs to enjoy, and strength returned to 
the enfeebled frames. But in their own present happiness 
they did not close their eyes to the miseries of others, 
nor make the contrast a completer joy. The cry of the 
little ones rang in their ears — the awful mortality of the 
children, their British birthright lost to the few who 
survived, the strength of body and the moral fibre 
weakened. Bad enough for boys was the barrack life; 
infinitely worse for the girls. Every one regretted that 
it was so — and there the matter had stayed, until Henry 
Lawrence resolved that something not only could but 
should be done. He wrote from Nepal to the Governor- 
General's military secretary to beg for Government 
sanction and approval of the scheme he and Mrs. Lawrence 
had planned. 

He proposed that a home for the children of soldiers 



Nepal and the Gurkhas 103 

should be established in the hills, to be supported mainly 
by voluntary contributions; orphans to be admitted free, 
and, where possible, part of the cost to be borne by parents ; 
Bible instruction to be given to all, but arrangements to be 
made by which the children of Roman Catholics and Non- 
conformists might be instructed by teachers of their own 
sects ; the Government to assist by making the advantages 
of the institution known as widely as possible in each 
regiment, and the principal civil and military officers 
at the nearest station to be associated in the management 
with five persons selected by subscribers. A donation of 
a hundred rupees or an annual subscription of twenty- 
four rupees should entitle to a vote ; the men of a regiment 
could club their subscriptions and claim votes in pro- 
portion to the total amount. 

Major Lawrence had not been able to put by any of his 
previous earnings, but this did not deter him from giving 
five thousand rupees (;^5oo) to launch his project, and 
subscribing one thousand rupees per annum. 

In due course the Government threw cold water on the 
scheme, and the official reply quoted the views of various 
officers, who had been consulted, by which " he would 
perceive that his plan was not feasible." Lawrence 
interpreted these soldiers' expressions of opinion in a 
different sense and " saw nothing of the kind." He 
persevered and obtained substantial offers of assistance. 
In March 1846 while the Sikh war was in progress he 
convened a meeting and explained his views to a number 
of officers, including the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh 
Gough, Sir Harry Smith, Colonels Havelock, Birch, and 
Grant, and Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes, his dear friend 
and disciple. 

The meeting heartily approved the scheme, and the fate 
of the Lawrence Asylum was assured. Sanawar, beauti- 
fully and healthfully situated in the hills near Simla, was 



1 04 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

fixed upon as the site for the original home. In course of 
time " Lawrence Asylums " were established in various 
hill districts, where alone European children can thrive, 
and the good, moral and physical, derived from the 
asylums by the white children in India has been incalcul- 
able. 



CHAPTER XII 
(1845-1846) 

THE SIKHS 

Lord Hardinge and John Lawrence — History of the Sikhs — Sikh 
Aggression — Both Henry and John are needed — Defeat of the 
Sikhs — Gulab Singh and Kashmir. 

As magistrate and collector of Delhi and Paniput John 
Lawrence first attracted the attention of one who had the 
power to make or mar. Henry's name was known far 
and wide, but John's work had not brought him promi- 
nently before the eye of authority. Two at least of the 
three Governors-General, under whom he had held office, 
had appreciated the genius of the elder brother, but in 
all probability none of the three was aware of the existence 
of John Lawrence. But now a new ruler came to India, 
Sir Henry Hardinge, a famous soldier, the favourite of 
the Duke of Wellington, and a man beloved for his chivalry, 
his courage of the highest type, and his real goodness of 
heart. Thoroughly resolved to do his duty in his high 
calling the new Governor-General began to acquire know- 
ledge by personally inspecting the frontiers. Not a mere 
sight-seeing parade but an honest attempt to learn more 
of the conditions and modes of life of the people set under 
him, and, being a soldier, to make sure that no steps had 
been neglected to provide against the dreaded Sikh 
invasion. While in the Delhi district he was greatly im- 
pressed by the ability and sagacity, energy, resource, and 
thoroughness of the magistrate, and before they had been 

105 . . 



io6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

together for many hours they had begun to understand 
and appreciate one another. The time was close at hand 
when Sir Henry Hardinge, in need of the man for a most 
important duty, gave the order, " Send me John Lawrence ! " 

A month later the inevitable war broke out. In 
December 1845 a Sikh force of more than one hundred 
thousand soldiers and camp followers, with a hundred and 
fifty pieces of heavy artillery, crossed the Sutlej and 
challenged England to a fight for supremacy on the Indian 
continent, and Henry Lawrence was summoned post-haste 
from Nepal. The man who knew most about the Sikhs 
was needed, and the Governor-General had studied 
Lawrence's essays on the Punjab in the Calcutta Review. 

The Sikhs are a sect, not a race. In the early years of 
the sixteenth century the Guru Nanuk rose up in the 
Punjab to denounce the idolatry of modern Hinduism 
and to teach a purer faith. Nanuk was a man of saintly 
life and doctrine and his many followers became known 
as Sikhs, from the Sanskrit Sishya (a disciple). The 
Guru (high-priest) held that Mohammedans served the 
same Supreme Being under another name. Recognising 
the element of truth in each of the two chief religions of 
Hindustan, he applied himself to build a purer faith out 
of both, and he preached the unity of the Godhead, uni- 
versal toleration and benevolence, and strict morality. He 
swept away the incubus of caste, and taught that in the 
eyes of God high and low are one. 

The first Guru was a man of such purity, humility, and 
charm of character that Mohammedans willingly acknow- 
ledged him a prophet of God, and, on his death, a dispute 
arose as to whether his body should be burned as a Hindu 
or buried as a Mussulman. There is something ironical in 
the reflection that, in spite of the common belief in one 
God and antagonism to idolatry, this attempt to unite 
with the Mohammedans only resulted in the deadliest 



The Sikhs 



107 



hatred between the two sects — a hatred which has in no 
wise abated. 

The first Mogul emperor, Baber, had too much on his 
hands to pay close attention to the insignificant new sect, 
and during the glorious reign of Akbar the tolerant, and 
also under Jehangir and Shah Jehan, the Sikhs were free 
from persecution. It was not until a much later date that 
the brotherhood was destined to develop military tend- 
encies of such a nature as to cause alarm to the Mogul 
rulers. But towards the close of the seventeenth century, 
when the fanatical zeal of Aurungzebe had developed into 
a mania, the attempts of that monarch to suppress the 
Sikhs resulted in a corresponding enthusiasm on their 
part, and they clung to their faith more tenaciously than 
ever. That the obstinate sect might be finally disposed 
of, the emperor caused Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Guru, 
to be tortured and executed. From that moment the 
Sikh religion became militant. 

The new Guru, Govind Singh, son of Tegh Bahadur, 
impelled by revenge, devoted his followers to worship of 
the sword. He proclaimed liberty, equality, and fraternity ; 
he commanded them to add the name Singh (lion) to their 
other names, to keep their heads and beards unshorn, to 
wear blue garments, to avoid tobacco in every form 
(though the use of bhang and opium was not forbidden), 
and always to carry a sword. He allowed them to eat any 
flesh save that of the cow and also abolished caste, fore- 
seeing the strength that this would give his forces by 
establishing unity of aim. The very distinctive community 
thus created he named the Khalsa (the " Elect " or the 
" Chosen People "). Members were admitted by a kind 
of baptismal rite, when an oath was taken not to worship 
images, never to do obeisance to any other than a Guru, 
and never to turn the back on a foe. 

Govind Singh refused to appoint a successor, but gave 



io8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

instructions that after his death the Sacred Book — the 
Granth — should for all time be considered the Guru of the 
Sikhs. By this time their creed was less simple and 
austere than as taught by Nanuk. They were no longer 
the eclectic sect that their founder had intended, for they 
had resumed many of the ignoble practices of the com- 
munity from which they had broken. In some respects, 
however, no change had occurred. They still regarded 
graven images with scorn and rendered the same complete 
submission to their Guru. Over and over again it is 
impressed in the Granth that, "The Guru is guide; the 
word of the Guru is law." 

In the present day there is an undoubted tendency on 
the part of the Sikhs to revert to Vaishnavism. An ever- 
increasing number now observe Hindu ceremonies and 
festivals, and even consider it worfh while to conciliate 
the Hindu deities, and the exclusiveness of caste is no 
longer unknown to them. A very long time must elapse, 
however, before complete absorption takes place. 

The vast majority of converts to the Khalsa were Jats, 
a fair number of Khatris or northern Rajputs being 
attracted, but few Mohammedans or pure Rajputs. The 
Jats, who are the most important race of the Punjab and 
of the Rajput States, are sturdy husbandmen and yeomen, 
and are believed by some authorities, including Tod, to be 
descended from the Getae of the Greeks, a Scythian tribe 
which helped to overthrow the Graeco-Bactrian power, 
and which, it is supposed, settled in Northern India after 
the Indo-Scythian or Turanian invasion, about loo B.C. 
Our information regarding this race under the name of the 
Yueh-chi is chiefly drawn from Chinese sources. 

The relationship of the Yueh-chi to other races has been 
much discussed; by some they have even been identified 
with the Goths. Professor Max Miiller, however, con- 
siders this derivation of the Jats " not proven," and 



The Sikhs 109 

Dr. Trumpp regards them as descendants of the first 
Aryan settlers in the Indus valley. Their language, which 
is of Sanskrit origin, certainly favours his view. 

No sooner had Govind Singh created the Khalsa than a 
sanguinary struggle against the paramount power ensued. 
Aurungzebe, however, was too strong a man, and though 
the Sikhs were knit closer together and their military 
capabilities brought out, they seemed to make but little 
impression on the Mogul power. Aurungzebe died in the 
year 1707, whereupon the Hindu leaders in all quarters of 
the empire, foreseeing the decline of the Mogul rule, 
waxed aggressive. Bahadur Shah, the new emperor, 
was soon weighed in the balances against his predecessor 
and found wanting. 

Within twelve months of the death of Aurungzebe, 
Govind Singh, the tenth and last of the Chief Gurus, met 
his fate at the hands of two Pathan brothers in settlement 
of a blood feud. This did not tend to lessen the religious 
animosity, and the struggle for independence waxed 
fiercer and fiercer. The quondam religious brotherhood, 
after defeating one of the governors of the empire, sacked 
the town of Sirhind with atrocious accompaniment. 

This success augmented the Sikh ranks considerably, 
all the outcasts of the Punjab, as well as numbers of low- 
caste Hindus, finding it profitable to become converted. 
Bahadur Shah, that he might have a free hand in dealing 
with this new element, hastened to conciliate the Hindu 
princes by concessions calculated to make his bigoted 
predecessor turn in his grave. This accomplished, the 
Sikhs were for a time kept under, and for a lengthy period 
they suffered persecution with great firmness — thousands 
being executed with torture rather than forsake their 
creed. 

During the second half of the eighteenth century the 
Sikh organisation improved in a wonderful manner. The 



I I o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

various districts gathered themselves into confederacies 
known as misls, under capable leaders, and successfully 
resisted both Mogul and Afghan invaders, and about the 
year 1780 the dominion of the Khalsa was paramount in 
the Punjab, Pathan attacks were less frequent and less 
dangerous, while the Mogul Empire had become but a 
shadow of its former might. The brotherhood had formally 
assumed the character of a nation, and had issued coinage 
from which the name of the Mogul ruler was absent. 

But now a power, mightier by far than the Sikhs, was 
advancing, inexorable as fate, its boundaries spreading 
more rapidly than theirs in all directions. Inevitable it 
seemed that a terrible shock must result at some not 
distant date, but through the wisdom of Ranjit Singh the 
blow did not fall until the middle of the nineteenth century. 
This future maharaja was the son of a sirdar of one of 
the misls. He was born in 1780, and in his twentieth year 
was already regarded as one of the foremost chieftains. 
In his early days he was probably greatly influenced by 
the careers of his father's contemporaries, Madhaji Sindhia 
and Mulhar Rao Holkar, who had risen to sovereignty 
from a position similar to his; the former, indeed, haviiig 
just failed to snatch the dominion of India, a failure largely 
due to the jealousy of the rival house of Holkar. 

Ranjit Singh proved more sagacious, if perhaps less 
brilliant, than the Mahratta princes ; and by the year 1812 
he had by force, cunning, or persuasion brought most of 
the sirdars under his sway. Possessing all the qualities 
of a leader himself, he saw that his material was the finest 
in India, and to disarm jealousy he took good care to 
proclaim that he acted always as the servant of Govind 
and of the Khalsa. The popularity which this brought 
him amongst the soldiers did not turn his head, for, unlike 
most Eastern conquerors, he was able to perceive his own 
limitations. Fond of power as he was, his sagacity never 



The Sikhs 1 1 1 

misled him as to the futihty of any attempt to measure 
himself against the British, with whom he remained in 
friendship until his death in 1839. 

Having repeatedly defeated the Afghans, he turned his 
attention to the rajas of the petty hill states ; then in 1818 
he captured Multan. The next year he expelled the 
Afghans from Kashmir and annexed that kingdom, and 
a little later again defeated them and took Peshawar. 
This aroused the Pathan tribes to intense fury. Jehad 
was preached by the mullahs, religious wars ensued, and 
for many years the Khalsa warriors were hotly engaged, 
rarely without complete success. In 1838, however. 
Dost Mohammed, the new amir, swiftly gathered together 
a large army and defeated the Sikhs before Peshawar; 
but the Barukzai chief had to withdraw without taking 
the town. 

The " Lion of the Punjab " — one of the most remarkable 
figures of the East — died in the following year. Com- 
merce, industry, and art had not been encouraged by his 
rule; his whole attention had been given to the creation 
of a military nation out of the loosely organised misls, 
and the fighting machine thus produced is without a rival 
in Indian history. His co-religionists numbered less than 
2,000,000, yet he had brought under their sway nearly 
20,000,000 people. 

Following close upon his death came the First Afghan 
War, and the mismanagement and consequent disasters 
aroused in the Sikh mind the idea that their late ruler had 
been mistaken with regard to the invincibility of the 
British. The traditions of Ranjit Singh luckily remained 
fresh, and the new government stood loyal and even 
allowed the passage of troops through their country. 
But, later, the usual disputes and intrigues arose as to the 
succession, and a state of anarchy followed the assassination 
of several of the claimants. The nation becoming restive, 



1 1 2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the influence of the militant anti-British party increased, 
and troops were moved towards the frontier. The British, 
anxious to avoid collision, viewed these movements with 
apprehension, and strengthened their forces. Exagger- 
ated accounts of these preparations filled the Sikhs with 
alarm, and, further anarchy prevailing, the Sikh army 
became insubordinate and shortly took the real power 
of the state into its own hands. In December 1845 the 
war party could no longer be restrained ; the Sikhs crossed 
the Sutlej and war was declared. At once the insubordina- 
tion ceased, and the army of the Khalsa returned to its 
old discipline and loyalty. 

Now had come the opportunity for Henry and John 
Lawrence to prove that those qualities, which had served 
the state so well in matters parochial by comparison, equally 
fitted them to rule an empire. Henceforward the name of 
Lawrence will be for ever linked with that of the Sikh 
nation, of whom they were in turn foemen, conciliators 
and counsellors, judges, rulers, leaders, and demi-gods. 

The opening battles of Mudki and Ferozshah were hotly 
contested. The Sikhs retired across the Sutlej to recruit, 
and the British force, though victorious, had received a 
staggering blow, the loss in killed and wounded at Feroz- 
shah alone numbering two thousand five hundred. The 
enemy disgraced their valour by gross treachery and 
barbarity. Chief among the British losses was the death of 
Major Broadfoot, the distinguished soldier of Jelalabad, 
who had been appointed envoy at Lahore. 

Quick came the call to Henry Lawrence to replace the loss. 

" You are required forthwith," wrote Mr. Currie, the 
Governor-General's secretary, from the camp at Ferozpore. 
" You should make over your charge to your assistant 
. . . and come with all despatch to this place. . . . 
Come quickly. ... I have no time for more ; lose no 
time in coming." 



The Sikhs 



113 



Henry Lawrence was not the man to lose time. He 
received the message at seven p.m. on January 6, 1846, and 
by three p.m. next day he had set forth. The hurried part- 
ing was the harder for husband and wife because Mrs. Law- 
fence and the two boys were shortly to set out for England. 
" I wished for many reasons to delay a week," he wrote 
in his Nepal Journal, " but I ought to go at once. . . . 
My wife, my darling wife will support herself and believe 
that He, Who brought us together, and has kept us midst 
many dangers and many partings, can and will protect 
us still. May we both trust in our Saviour and endeavour 
to show our trust by our conduct." 

At the same time came the turn of the younger brother. 
Sir Henry Hardinge remembered the magistrate and 
collector of Delhi, with whose qualifications and capability 
he had been so pleased, and he sent a message to John 
Lawrence to come to the aid of the sorely-pressed army. 
How proud would Alexander Lawrence have been had he 
lived to know that when India was in need of her best 
men the choice should fall upon two of his sons. The 
mother was happy to catch a glimpse of her " best- 
beloved's " fame, and a glimpse only, before she died. 

A reverse at Budhowal and a victory at Aliwal followed 
close upon the battle of Ferozshah, and in both these 
fields the Sikhs fought like heroes. A week or two later 
Gough crushed the Khalsa at Sobraon and the First Sikh 
War was over. 

Sobraon might have been another Mudki or Ferozshah 
had John Lawrence been less thorough. He it was who 
had collected and sent forward the huge train of supplies 
and the heavy guns which made Sobraon a decisive battle. 
More than once had he striven in vain to reform the 
wretched system by which supplies, draught vehicles and 
animals, and the necessary thousands of drivers and camp- 
followers were obtained. The mortality of transport 



I 14 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

animals was always heavy, and owing to the hopeless dis- 
honesty of the natives employed to contract for supplies, 
and the difficulty of checking fraud by the overworked 
English officials in such times of hurry and bustle, owners 
of good animals were naturally reluctant to supply the 
army. The expenditure became reckless — for animals 
must be forthcoming whatever the cost — and when 
sufficient had been collected and the order given to march, 
the drivers had a habit of deserting in thousands. Yet 
John Lawrence succeeded in spite of the fact that his 
district had already been drained. He provided four 
thousand carts, drawn by twenty-four thousand oxen, 
took care that the owners were compensated, and inspired 
the seven thousand native drivers and servants with such 
confidence that the number of desertions was insignificant, 
and the huge convoy arrived in time to turn the scale. 

Henry Lawrence had his share also in Sobraon. Present 
as a political, he somehow found his way to the guns and 
helped to direct the operations of his old corps. 

The Khalsa had been badly beaten, and the Punjab was 
at the disposal of the East India Company whose territory 
had been so wantonly invaded. Advocates of annexation 
were not wanting and their arguments were reasonable. 
The Sikhs had shown conclusively their hatred of the 
English by their ferocity towards the wounded— a striking 
contrast to the chivalry displayed by the Gurkhas in the 
Nepal War. That they would prove bad neighbours was 
plain enough, argued the annexationists. The soldiers 
of the commonwealth had shown that they were masterless 
men, scornful of their nominal rulers, and they were not 
likely to settle down in peace until the English should 
prove that they were beyond doubt their masters, and 
until a strong, just rule should be set up to displace the 
intriguing puppets who played at governing in Lahore. 

On the other hand the East India Company evinced 



The Sikhs 115 

its usual distaste for the acquisition of new territory 
accompanied by increased responsibility, anxiety, and 
outla3^ Sir Henry Hardinge, who had himself fought 
with the bravest, and whose gallantry at Ferozshah had 
helped to turn the tide, was against annexation, and his 
own views were strengthened by the influence of Henry 
Lawrence, now a power in the land. The Sikhs were down, 
they were humbled, and Lawrence placed himself in their 
position. Had Ran] it Singh's Ironsides been still un- 
broken, had they shown any disposition further to dispute 
our prowess, a Lawrence would have been the last to 
advocate withdrawal. " There is," he wrote later to the 
Governor-General, " all the difference in the world between 
voluntarily restoring a country at a period of perfect 
peace, and abandoning it when pressed or even threatened 
with danger." 

Though his wisdom did not ignore the likelihood of a 
fresh trial of strength as soon as the Punjab should, with 
its wonderful elasticity, recover from the Sobraon blow, 
he maintained that the Sikhs should be given another 
chance. To teach and guide the Lahore durbar, to give 
proof of a desire for the welfare and prosperity of the 
Punjabis, to allow them to see that Englishmen are not 
bound by the motives that rule Asiatics, all this he advised, 
and Hardinge believed in Henry Lawrence. 

The Sikhs needed a lesson however; nor could the 
danger of renewed conflict be ignored by a statesman. 
So the Governor-General annexed the Jalandar Doab, a 
tract of fertile country between the Sutlej and the Beas, 
and also the Trans-Sutlej Hill States conquered by Ranjit 
Singh. These provinces would be comparatively easy of 
administration ; the people— of whom only a small minority 
are Sikhs — would not be averse from the change of masters ; 
and the new territory would be of strategic importance 
should the Khalsa once more pit itself against the Company. 



1 1 6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

In accordance with the custom of war the vanquished 
aggressors were mulcted with a proportion of the victors' 
costs. This fine the Sikhs were unable to pay, and in lieu 
of cash other of Ranjit Singh's conquests, including that 
earthly paradise, the Vale of Kashmir, were withdrawn 
from their allegiance to Lahore. Unhappily — most un- 
happily for the miserable Kashmiris — the Company's 
dread of increased responsibility combined with the diffi- 
culty of administration, cut off as it was by the Punjab 
from British India, led the directors to barter away that 
lovely and healthy country. Gulab Singh, the Dogra 
ruler of Jammu, stepped forward and offered to pay the 
fine and — so great was his love for the English — he would 
take Kashmir off their hands and relieve their anxiety. 
Gulab Singh was famous for his ability to take care of 
himself. He was one of the three Dogra brothers whose 
influence over Ranjit Singh had been so great; he was 
the one powerful chieftain left of Ranjit Singh's sirdars ; 
he was the most influential man of the Lahore durbar; 
and he holds a more prominent place than any other native 
in the story of Henry Lawrence, who was often chaffed 
about his " protege." Even Herbert Edwardes abused 
Gulab Singh unmercifully to his protector, and no one 
could understand what seemed to be an alliance between 
Vice and Virtue. 

Gulab Singh had held aloof during the war, ready to 
side with the victors, and Lawrence admitted that he was 
an intriguer with an unerring instinct to further his own 
ends, that he was dishonest, cruel, a liar, and a miser. 
But he maintained that, while these faults were common 
to Asiatic rulers, Gulab Singh had virtues of exceeding 
rarity, that he was able and brave, and his morals were 
vastly superior to those of the common run of Indian 
rajas, that on occasion he could be " mild, conciliatory, and 
even merciful," and that his character was one capable of 



The Sikhs 117 

being moulded. If Kashmir must be sold, let it be to a 
man, not to a vicious weakling, and of all the possibles 
Gulab Singh was the least objectionable. 

Ruffian as the Maharaja of Kashmir undoubtedly was, 
his admiration and respect for Henry Lawrence were 
genuine and an influence for good. He was niggardly 
and yet he offered one hundred thousand rupees to the 
Lawrence Asylum when the work was started, and though 
Lawrence declined the offer at first, he finally asked the 
Government's sanction and accepted the gift. And 
when his patron left the Punjab, Gulab Singh sent twenty- 
five thousand rupees to the asylum, instead of subscribing 
to the testimonial, rightly judging that so unselfish a man 
would prefer this method of expressing regret. 

Gulab Singh's offer of a million sterling was accepted, 
and when, in March 1846, the Lahore Treaty was signed 
by Mr. Currie and Major Lawrence on the part of England, 
and by the boy-maharaja, Dhulip Singh, and his minister, 
Lai Singh, on the part of the Sikhs, Gulab Singh was 
invested Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, the Dogra 
readily promising to abstain from further interference in 
the affairs of the Punjab. A British force was retained at 
Lahore, and Henry Lawrence ruled the land in the name 
of Dhulip Singh, and put forth his full powers in the 
attempt to establish a strong and friendly native rule. 



CHAPTER XIII 

(1846-1847) 

THE LAWRENCES AND THEIR PUNJABIS 

Henry becomes the " Ruling Spirit of the Punjab " — His " Disciples " 
— The Lahore Residency — John administers the Jalandar 
Doab — Female Infanticide — John's Subordinates — Sikh In- 
trigues — Banishment of the Maharani. 

A HARDER task than that now given to Henry Lawrence 
would be difficult to conceive. Since the death of Ran jit 
Singh the twenty millions of Punjabis had had no master, 
and anarchy had prevailed from the Sutlej to the Indus. 
" Woe to that land that's governed by a child." 

" No man," said the historian of the Sepoy War, " ever 
undertook a high and important trust with a more solemn 
sense of his responsibility, or ever, with more singleness 
of purpose and more steadfast sincerity of heart, set himself 
to work, with God's blessing, to turn a great opportunity 
to great account for the benefit of his fellows. In Henry 
Lawrence a pure transparent nature, a simple manliness, 
and truthfulness of character were combined with high 
intellectual powers and personal energies which nothing 
could easily subdue." 

He now began to gather round him the nucleus of the 
famous Punjabi brotherhood. He was so good a judge 
of character, he knew so well how to make the best of men, 
that all his assistants made their mark in history. When 
in Nepal he had been greatly interested in the Brahmini 
Bull articles in the Delhi Gazette. Written by a junior 

118 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis 1 1 9 

subaltern, they were declared by good authorities to be 
from the pen of a soldier of long service and varied experi- 
ence in the field. Henry Lawrence was convinced that, 
in addition to ability, the author had the right spirit, 
and Herbert Edwardes became his private secretary. 
He remembered ^ the boy-hero of Ghazni, and before long 
John Nicholson was on the frontier; and one by one the 
others took their places by his side, his brothers George 
and John, Lieutenants Becher, Lake, Lumsden, and 
Reynell Taylor, and Captain Abbott^ — "Uncle" Abbott 
whom Lawrence termed " a true knight-errant, gentle as 
a girl in thought and word and deed," who subdued by 
kindness the wild hillmen of Hazara whom the Sikhs had 
never been able to control. 

He took their measure and sent them forth, one as ruler 
over iive cities, another over ten, and his instructions 
were: "Settle the country; make the people happy; 
and take care there are no rows; " and, having tested 
them, he gave them responsibility. They were not 
hampered by red tape; he knew that his men were good, 
and that responsibility would therefore call forth their 
highest efforts. His disciples learned to stand alone, 
fearing no responsibility, acting on their own initiative and 
adapting themselves to diverse conditions. There were 

1 " Indeed, it was a well-known custom of Henry Lawrence to 
keep notes of the names of promising men. When at messes or 
assemblies, where the merits of officers were discussed, he would 
take out his note-book and forthwith make entries of men described 
by their comrades as good and true." — Lumsden of the Guides, pp. 
19-20. 

* Colonel Sir Robert Warburton has told how, in 1897, near 
Murri, " two very old men were walking ahead of me, and hearing 
the name of Abbott repeated time after time, curiosity induced me 
to join in their conversation. . . . To my inquiries they both said, 
' Abbott Sahib was loved in the district, and the old people rever- 
ence his memory even now.' The elder of the Hazaras then spoke 
of his own accord: ' Abbott Sahib's heart was like a fakir's; he 
was always thinking of and for his people.' " — Eighteen Years in 
the Khyber, pp. 316-317. 



I20 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

too many Governors-General and Commanders-in-Chief 
in the Punjab, thought Lord Hardinge's successor; but 
when, at a later period, most Englishmen in India lost their 
heads for a time, the Punjabis were found cool and re- 
sourceful. Hodson, the cavalry leader, has given some 
idea of the duties that might fall to the lot of a mere 
ensign under Henry Lawrence.^ " I am daily and all day 
at work with compasses and chain, pen and pencil, follow- 
ing streams, diving into valleys, burrowing into hills, to 
complete mj^ work. I need hardty remark that having 
never attempted anything of the kind, it is bothering at 
first. I should not be surprised any day to be told to 
build a ship, compose a code of laws, or hold assizes." 

" It was a wonderfully real and happy life in those early 
days of the Old Residency at Lahore," wrote Lady 
Edwardes.2 " Here was a band of strong and young and 
earnest men, all bent on doing good, with their minds 
clear and strong, and full of hope, and at their head was 
Henry Lawrence, a giant in the battle of life, fighting 
against evil and wrong, and guiding aU, and quickening 
into life and usefulness all bright thoughts and schemes 
that came to any of that earnest band of friends. 

" And among them a few, fair, gentle women, wives and 
sisters — very few. But the ministering angel of them 
all was Honoria Lawrence, the brave and noble wife of 
Henry Lawrence, who was ever the inspiring genius of her 
husband's higher life, the glad sharer of his every thought, 
and the softening and refining element that glided through 
and pervaded that ' Old Residency,' and gave a charm 
to the wildness and roughness of this frontier life to all its 
inmates. For hers was a mind that loved the wildness, 
and rejoiced in the unconventionality of the life ; and her 
room was the natural rallying-point of all the wit and 

1 A Leader of Light Horse, p. 24. 

' Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes. 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis i 2 i 

talent that was among them — and there was no lack of 
that." 

" Henry Lawrence had suddenly become the ruling spirit 
of the Punjab," said Abbott after his hero's death, " but 
he remained for his friends the same simple-minded, 
hearty Pat Lawrence of former years." 

It was the chance for which Henry Lawrence had lived, 
and he set to work to re-organise his vast kingdom, and 
tried hard to impress the influential sirdars with a sense 
of responsibility and duty towards the state and towards 
the common people, and, disheartening as was the apparent 
failure, he never slackened his efforts to persuade them 
to subordinate their own interests and ambitions to the 
service of the fatherland. Most delicate of all his dealings 
were those that had to do with the reputed queen-mother, 
one of those clever and unscrupulous Hindu women, who 
have wrought such harm in native states. One eye had, 
moreover, to be kept on his friend Gulab Singh at Jammu, 
whose aim was to keep the English too busy at Lahore to 
be able to pay much heed to his doings. 

" Henry Lawrence, indeed, was wholly without guile," 
wrote Sir John Kaye.^ What chance then could his open 
nature and straight dealing have when pitted against those 
past-masters in the art of intrigue, the maharani and Lai 
Singh, her lover and confidential minister! They, who 
tried to thwart him, soon found out. 

" In India," said Sir John Kaye,^ "... our greatest 
successes have been achieved by men incapable of deceit, 
and by means which have invited scrutiny. When we 
have opposed craft to craft, and have sought to out- 
juggle our opponents, the end has been commonly 
disastrous. It is only by consummate honesty and trans- 
parent truthfulness that the Tall5Tands of the East have 
been beaten by such mere children in the world's ways 
^ The Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 9. ° Ibid. vol. i. p. 8. 



122 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

as Mountstuart Elphinstone, Charles Metcalfe, James 
Outram, and Henry Lawrence." 

Twenty-six years had passed since John Lawrence, a 
boy of eight, had followed his brother, " a bony muscular 
fellow " of fourteen, to watch him fight the bully of the 
school. " Who is to be your second? " John had asked. 
" You, if you like," Henry had replied. And now, in the 
year 1846, John was again to be his brother's second. 
While Henry was to be chief ruler, John was to govern 
a province. 

The Governor-General of India had faith in the Law- 
rence brothers, so much so that some alleged that he 
was under Henry's thumb. A ruler was wanted for the 
Jalandar Doab, and once more Lord Hardinge bethought 
himself of the magistrate of Delhi. So he wrote to 
Mr. Thomason, Lieutenant-Governor of the North- West 
Provinces, asking him to send up John Lawrence. The 
great administrator took upon himself to send another 
officer — one whose capability he guaranteed. Not that 
Mr. Thomason had doubts with respect to Lawrence's 
fitness for the post ; his disobedience was indeed a tribute, 
for he did not relish the idea of losing him. The capable 
officer was promptly sent back. 

" Send me John Lawrence! " came the order, curt and 
not to be misconstrued, and, at the age of thirty-four, 
John Lawrence was promoted over the heads of his seniors 
to govern the newly-annexed Doab and the Hill States 
taken from the Sikhs. 

The Jalandar Doab is the north-eastern tract of the 
Punjab, between the Beas and Sutlej rivers, a country 
fertile and well peopled. For sc me weeks he was practi- 
cally single-handed, none of his f c ur assistants having been 
able straightway to quit his post. Therefore we learn 
without any amazement that he; looked back upon this 
time as one of the busiest of his hard-worked life. 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis 123 

One of his earliest reforms was the substitution of a 
money payment of the land-tax in place of the time- 
honoured payment in kind. Taxation was thereby 
reduced by 10 or even 20 per cent., but the natives 
were not easily convinced of the advantage, and the change 
was opposed until they saw that nothing would be gained 
by grumbling. Though " East is East and West is West," 
the Englishman is akin to the J at. 

He next resolved to check the murder of female infants, 
a practice all too common in his district. The difficulty 
in dealing with this class of crime was greater than would 
appear at first sight. An epidemic of murder and outrage 
of the commonplace type could be much more easily 
stamped out, even by an alien ruler if strong and backed 
by force. In such a case the criminals would get little 
sympathy from the better-disposed of their countrymen, 
by whom indeed the success of him who stood for good 
government would be welcomed. The suppressor of crime 
could have no pity for the murderers, or, at least, sympathy 
for the misguided men would never cause him to hesitate 
in the execution of his duty, nor could the sufferer pose as 
a martyr in a people's cause. But among high-caste 
Hindus female infanticide could not be classed as a crime 
in the ordinary sense. The custom was due, not to a 
vicious and callous nature, but to that caste-pride to which 
so many of India's woes must be ascribed. A Rajput dare 
not bestow his daughter upon an inferior in caste, nor 
upon a member of the same clan or tribe, and the chances 
of marriage are thus restricted. Even where there might 
be little difficulty in finding a husband the expense to 
which a Rajput is put by the celebration of a daughter's 
nuptials is often ruinous. As an unmarried girl is supposed 
to bring dishonour upon her father's house — the mother 
being her most bitter upbraider — Rajput parents consider 
that the death of the infant is the sure precaution against 



I 24 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

disgrace or ruin for themselves, or a life of misery for the 
daughter. 

To a Hindu the custom appears natural and praiseworthy, 
and though Lay ens Sahib was a just and wise Hakim, who 
evidently wished them well, in this matter he was clearly 
ignorant and irrational. So the commissioner could not 
look for help even from the most friendly of his subjects, 
unable as they were to appreciate his point of view, and the 
greybeards argued that in this matter they must surely 
know better than the young sahib from a far-off country 
where unclean and unspeakable customs prevail. On 
his part, John Lawrence could not place on a level with the 
budmtash, who had cut a throat for gain, the manly Rajput 
who had sacrificed his daughter for what he considered 
the good of his family and of the victim herself. He did 
not, however, sit down to meditate upon the injustice of 
punishing a parent who, with none but the best of inten- 
tions and without suggestion of sin, had allowed his child 
to die. It was for him to check the practice, and that 
by force, and a few must suffer for the state. Persuasion 
would be useless ; argument in vain. How could he 
reason with them, he looking at the obverse side of the 
shield, they at the reverse ? 

A petition, imploring him to refrain from interference 
with the workings of their conscience, was presented by the 
Bedis (a Levitical caste of the Sikhs). John Lawrence 
summoned their elders and ordered the chief priest and head 
of the clan to issue a proclamation forbidding the Bedis 
to slay their children. The old man replied that all he 
possessed was at the disposal of the sahib, but comply he 
could not. " Obey, or give up your lands," was the 
commissioner's alternative, and the chief of the Bedis 
chose the latter course, although it is the duty of the Bedis 
pubhcly to read and expound the Granth (the Sikh Bible), 
which not only forbids female infanticide but even com- 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis 125 

mands true Sikhs to abstain from all intercourse with 
those who kill their daughters. 

In later days the grim but humour-loving viceroy, in a 
household blessed by numerous daughters, was heard to 
chuckle, " Ah ! those Bedis were not such bad fellows 
after all; the only thing that I am disposed to regret in 
my Indian administration is that I was so hard upon them 
in the matter of female infanticide." ^ 

Among his assistants at this time were Robert Cust, 
Hercules Scott, Edward Lake of the Bengal Engineers, 
and Harry Lumsden, the first commandant of the Guides, 
They have placed on record their opinions of their chief, 
his abundant energy, his readiness to help the juniors 
however busy he might be, his ability to get work out 
of others, and his contempt for " drones and shirks." 
Though a hard taskmaster he was always most hard upon 
himself, and if he blamed freely he was not chary of praise. 
With this difference — and here we catch a glimpse of the 
man — he preferred to blame a man to his face and praise 
him behind his back. Henry dealt out praise and blame 
alike in the presence of whosoever deserved the one or the 
other, and, despite his fiery and touchy temperament, he 
was loved with a devotion rarely accorded to any great 
man in the history of the world. 

John appreciated the good work of his more capable 
assistants even if he did not tell them as much. Here, 
however, in a note to his brother and chief, is an example 

of his scorn for inferior work. " I had to send all 's 

reports back, they are so badly done. He is a rara avis 
and says his work is killing him. A very innocent murder 
it would be! "2 

" I held him in great awe at first," said Mr. Hercules 
Scott, " a feeling which was intensified by his strict 
oversight of all the proceedings of his subordinates, and 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. i8o. * Ibid. vol. i. p. i8o. 

I 



126 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

by a certain niggedness of manner and exterior, under 
which, as I afterwards found, the warmest and kindhest 
of hearts lay concealed. My work must have bristled 
with irregularities and blunders, which were duly cauterised, 
but he made allowance for the unequal combat which, 
as a young hand, I had endeavoured to maintain, and 
reported very kindly of me to Government. . . . The 
awe with which he had inspired me soon wore off, and our 
acquaintance ripened into a thorough confidence and 
attachment. Pressing as were his own engagements, it 
was never the wrong time to apply to him for advice or 
guidance in carrying out one's duties." ^ 

Mr. Cust has described his master's interviews with the 
native land-holders when arranging terms for the new 
cash settlement. ^" John Lawrence was full of energy — 
his coat off, his sleeves turned up above his elbows — and 
was impressing upon his subjects his principles of a just 
state demand, and their first elementary ideas of natural 
equity; for, as each man touched the pen, the unlettered 
token of agreement to their leases, he made them repeat 
aloud the new trilogue of the English Government: 
' Thou shaft not burn thy widow ; thou shalt not kill thy 
daughters ; thou shalt not bury alive thy lepers ; ' and old 
greybeards, in the families of some of whom there was not 
a single widow, or a female blood-relative, went away 
chanting the dogmas of the new Moses, which, next year, 
were sternly enforced." 

Another assistant, Mr. Lewin Bo wring, states that, 
" John Lawrence was very brusque of speech in those 
early days. . . . He used, with a merry twinkle of his eye, 
to say very sharp things to the Punjab chiefs, under which 
they winced, although he was half in fun. He certainly 
had what is called a rough tongue then, and the sirdars 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 172. 

' Pictures of Indian Life, pp. 245-246. 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis i 27 

had a wholesome dread of him. . . . He was a far abler 
man at details than his brother, though less considerate, 
perhaps, towards the Sikh chiefs. . . . The durbar, 
though they had a great respect for his force of character, 
did not regard him with as much affection as they did his 
brother." ^ Mr. Bo wring adds that, " in spite of his curt- 
ness of speech," he was most popular with his assistants. 

The spirit in which he buckled to his work in the 
Jalandar Doab is best expressed in a sentence from one of 
his letters to Sir Frederick Currie.2 " It is a new country 
. . . and I want to put my stamp on it, that in after 
times people may look back and recall my Raj with 
satisfaction." 

He did put his stamp on it, and on India. 

Though the peasants of the Trans-Sutlej Hill States 
were not sorry to be freed from Sikh oppression, the 
soldiers holding Kangra Fort refused to acknowledge 
the change of rulers. This famous rock fortress had the 
reputation of impregnability, and had been the object 
of innumerable sieges during its ten centuries of existence. 
The late maharaja had won it by stealth, and had left 
there a garrison of three hundred Sikhs, who now declared 
that they would hand the keys to Ran jit Singh if he should 
come for them, but to no lesser person. However worthy 
of admiration such steadfastness might be considered, 
defiance could not be tolerated; if allowed to pass, the 
example would assuredly be followed by other garrisons, 
and a loss of prestige would affect adversely the Lawrence 
influence for good. A further argument urged Henry to 
resort to strong measures. He had reason to believe that 
the maharani and Lai Singh were secretly encouraging 
the Kangra garrison to resist, whilst publicly denouncing 
them as traitors to Lahore. A success scored by the anti- 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 210-21 1. 
' Ihid. vol. i. p. 198. 



128 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

British party in the durbar would be fatal to the good 
government of the Punjab. 

The Resident set out from Lahore at the head of a Sikh 
force, and was joined by his brother and Lieutenant 
Lumsden with the local troops. Swiftness was necessary. 
The Punjab was a powder-magazine, and a spark from 
Kangra might suffice to explode it. The foemen were not 
under-rated; there was no scornful move against Kangra 
with an inadequate and ill-equipped force, and a consequent 
delay until big guns and further supplies should arrive. 
The Lawrences demanded siege-guns and got them. The 
Sikhs on both sides, besieged and besiegers, laughed at the 
idea of heavy guns being brought along their goat-tracks. 
But the Commissioner of the Jalandar Doab invited the 
officers of the garrison to his camp and, when they persisted 
in their refusal to surrender, he asked them to stay the 
night and witness the arrival of the elephant guns. Con- 
vinced that he was bluffing them they agreed to remain. 
Early next morning they were aroused by the sound of 
cheers in time to see the guns arrive, each drawn by three 
elephants and helped round the sharp bends of the pre- 
cipitous paths by scores of sepoys. Without a word the 
Sikh chieftains returned to their fort and the white flag 
presently signalled their submission. Not a drop of blood 
spilled, and a great result achieved. 

The surrender of Kangra was a blow to the Enghsh- 
hating maharani, who soon cast about for fresh means 
to embarrass her supervisor and inflame the passions of 
the subjects of her son. She had not to look far. The 
entry of Guiab Singh into his kingdom of Kashmir supplied 
the pretext, and Lai Singh, the chief minister, and the 
Sheik Imam-ud-din, Governor of Kashmir, were her agents. 

The Sikh durbar had ordered Imam-ud-din to hand 
over his charge to Gulab, but Lai Singh intimated privately 
that the command need not be taken seriously. Imam- 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis 129 

ud-din, " the best-dressed and best-mannered man in the 
Punjab," was debating whether to play entirely for his 
own hand and strike for the sovereignty of Kashmir, or to 
accept the maharani's bribe and oppose the entry of Gulab 
Singh on her behalf. He resolved in any case to fight 
the Dogra chief, and, doing so, he gained the advantage. 
This brought Henry Lawrence on the scene. 

For the credit of the Sikh Government Gulab Singh 
must be promptly supported, and he ordered the durbar 
to furnish troops to quell the insurrection of their servant 
in Kashmir. They did their utmost to put him off, to 
make difficulties, to delay operations. Gulab Singh argued 
that the army should be sent by a certain route; Lai 
Singh objected and, with sublime effrontery, suggested 
that Gulab Singh, being no longer a member of the Lahore 
durbar, was courting disaster and disgrace for the Sikh 
troops by choosing the most perilous route. Gulab Singh 
was quite equal to strategy of this nature, but hardly when 
his own interests were bound up with the success of the 
undertaking. 

The Sikh soldiers were unwilling to fight for any cause 
favoured by the English, and the eyes of their generals 
looked up to the hand of the maharani. But the feebler 
wills bent before the strong one; intrigue and cunning 
succumbed to resolution, and within a few weeks Henry 
had entered Kashmir at the head of a dozen Sikh regiments, 
mobilised by John, the civilian, and Imam-ud-din had 
surrendered to Herbert Edwardes. 

This feat deserves to be studied. It may be passed 
over too lightly now that the employment of Sikh troops 
under British officers seems a proceeding most natural, for 
the Sikh warrior of that day had enjoyed many privileges as 
a member of the Khalsa brotherhood, including immunity 
from taxation and both the right and opportunity to harass 
the weak, and he was embittered by the loss of these. 



130 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

It forms one of the most striking examples of moral force 
in the history of India, and the credit was shared by the 
brothers, for John was Acting- Resident when Imam-ud- 
din showed his hand, Henry being then at Simla. The 
sheik commanded a strong force and he held possession. 
The ten thousand Sikh troops, who went out against him, 
wished him success, as did their ofhcers and the sirdars at 
Lahore. Officers and sepoys had recently been fighting 
against the British and they hated the Feringhis, and 
instead of being cowed by defeat they were " spoiling " 
for another fight. There were innumerable Oriental 
excuses for delaying operations, yet so great was the force 
of character and the ikhal (prestige) of Henry Lawrence — 
absolutely at the mercy of the fierce Khalsa soldiery — 
that everything happened as he had planned. 

He himself described the affair as " a ticklish occasion," 
and divulged the fact that he had sent private word to 
Lai Singh, warning that Hindu Rizzio that, should any 
mishap befall the Resident, Jan Larens had orders to clap 
him into prison. Lai Singh knew his men. He had 
sought to dazzle the Englishmen by lavish displays of 
hospitality, and, seeing how completely he had failed, he 
cursed these pestilent Lawrence brothers, each of whom 
seemed in turn more wide-awake than the other. But 
it was checkmate. 

So Gulab Singh became a king and swore to his patron 
that he would discourage infanticide and suttee. Imam- 
ud-din turned " king's evidence " and brought forth the 
secret instructions in which Lai Singh and the maharani 
had commanded him to resist. Lai Singh fell from his high 
estate and there was no eruption in Lahore, not a brick 
thrown, not a shop closed. 

Lai Singh was tried and condemned by his colleagues 
of the Lahore durbar, the two Lawrences and three other 
British officers being present. Another question of im- 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis i 3 i 

portance was discussed by the Council, namely, the near 
approach of the date fixed for the withdrawal of British 
troops. The disciples of Govind hated the foreigner and 
his unclean ways. The Singh is proud and somewhat 
sullen ; he does not make friends easily as does that genial 
and faithful barbarian " Johnny Gurkha," and as does 
also Mohammed Khan, the Pathan — who may even 
cherish a fondness for the man he is plotting to murder for 
the sake of his rifle. But, hke or dishke, the sirdars were 
sage enough to see that the only chance for the state lay 
in the presence of a British force and that anarchy would 
follow a withdrawal. Moreover, some of these Lahore 
councillors did feel real respect and esteem for Henry 
Lawrence, and they all trusted him. The full durbar 
of fifty-one Sikh chiefs unanimously asked that the Indian 
troops might be allowed to remain, and agreed to pay all 
expenses, and in accordance with their desire ColoneP 
Lawrence became Protector, and practically Despot, of the 
Punjab. In the wording of the treaty, " these terms give 
the British Resident unlimited authority in all matters of 
internal administration and external relation during the 
Maharaja's minority." 

There was now " a triumvirate of Lawrences " in the 
Punjab, Lord Hardinge having given Major George Law- 
rence the charge of the Peshawar frontier, a post under 
Henry. Being a true Lawrence the elder brother was not 
envious. " It was very gratifying to me,"^ he wrote to 
Henry's wife in England, " to see the high estimation in 
which he is evidently held by the chiefs, and, indeed, by 
all parties. I have never yet heard one dissenting voice 
as to his being the very man for his present berth . . . 
and could not have believed that one short year would have 
done so much. The officers freelj^ admit that it was 

1 Promoted in June 1846. 

- Life of Sir Henry Lawvence, vol. ii. p. 91. 



I 3 2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

entirely due to Henry's energy and promptitude in repair- 
ing in person to Cashmere that matters there were brought 
to an amicable adjustment." 

Lai Singh had been put out of harm's way, but they were 
not yet rid of the maharani. In spite of the anxiety 
caused by her intrigues Colonel Lawrence was able to write 
to Sir Frederick Currie, the Secretary to Government, in 
June 1847, that, " With the experience of fourteen months, 
I can certify to this people having settled down in a manner 
that could never have been hoped of them." x\t the same 
time he mounded a warning note against over-confidence. 
The Sikhs had lost neither their pride of race nor their 
ianaticism, and were by no means convinced of the hope- 
lessness of a further trial of strength. 

John had already borne testimony to the substantial 
progress made in a letter from Lahore to his brother.^ 
" I don't think I ever knew the sepoys [Sikh] so well- 
behaved. . . . The opinion of us as rulers is greatly 
changed. The only evil is that when we get a country 
things go smoothly,^ for the people see the benefit of the 
change, and are satisfied. But as they die off, or forget the 
olden days of trouble and misrule, they feel slight twitches 
from our shoe pinching, and get discontented." 

» Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 189. 

- The confidence of the natives of the Punjab in the EngHsh 
standard of honour may be illustrated by a story from Sir W. Lee 
Warner's Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie (vol. i. p. 353). Fateh 
Khan Towana, a Mohammedan chieftain, expressed to John 
Lawrence his surprise that so much fuss should be made over such 
a man as Lai Singh. " ' If you want him out of the way,' said he, 
' I know a much shorter plan. Just say the word and ' (half- 
drawing his dagger) ' I'll manage it all for you.' LawTence shook 
his head and the conversation continued. Presently Lawrence 
put out his hand and drew Fateh Khan's dagger slowly out of its 
sheath. The chief took no notice, but went on talking. Lawrence 
then said to him, " How is it that you who are so suspicious of 
anybody, allow me to extract your dagger from your belt without 
taking any notice of it? ' ' Oh,' he replied, ' I know quite well 
that that is not the way the English fight. I would not have let 
a Sikh or any one else do it as quietly.' " 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis 133 

In another letter John, now Acting-Resident, introduces 
an actor upon whose performances all eyes were shortly 
to be concentrated. He was Mulraj,i Governor of Multan, 
the south-west province of the Punjab, a man who had 
been hand-in-glove with the queen-mother, and who had 
made the mistake of offering John Lawrence a bribe.^ 
" I told him that Sahibs never took bribes or presents. 
This appeared to surprise him; and he asked me rather 
pointedly if none of us did so. I said, ' Not one in a 
hundred, and that one is not worth bribing; for, depend 
on it, he has neither influence nor character.' He seemed 
puzzled a good deal, and told me that he had hitherto had 
little to do with us, and that for the future he was our fast 
friend, and ready to do our bidding." 

Possibly Mulraj meant it at the time — and he certainly 
gave us the Punjab. 

Junda Khore, the maharani, was a daughter of a trooper 
in the service of Ranjit Singh. As a dancing girl she had 
captivated the conqueror, but there is little ground for 
the belief that Ranjit Singh was the father of Dhulip Singh, 
and it is even doubtful if she was his mother. By un- 
scrupulous cunning she had made her recognition as 
queen-mother a necessity to the leading Sikh sirdars, 
and the boy was necessary to the furtherance of her 
intrigues. 

1 It is a curious fact that the folk who played the most prominent 
roles upon the Sikh stage at this period were rarely Sikhs, who are 
too slow of wit to match the Brahmans or Mussulmans in intrigue. 
The maharani was a Hindu nautch-girl, Lai Singh and his successor 
Tej Singh were Brahmans, Mulraj was a Khatri, Gulab Singh a 
Dogra, and Imam-ud-din a Mussulman. After the death of Ranjit 
Singh the inability of the durbar to control the turbulent Khalsa 
was quickly made plain. The maharani and many of the sirdars 
saw that they were in danger of being crushed by it; and it is 
practically certain that they deliberately incited the army to 
invade British territory— knowing what the end must be — in order 
to direct its attention away from their hoards. 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 193. 



134 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

With or without the support of Mulraj she would not 
desist from her attempts to fan the smouldering fires into 
flame, and when she incited her son grossly and publicly to 
insult Tej Singh (the sirdar who had stepped into the shoes 
of her fallen favourite), so grave an affront to the chief 
minister and to the whole Council could not be allowed to 
pass, and Henry Lawrence judged that the time for per- 
suasion and conciliation had gone by. He banished the 
queen-mother, granting her a liberal pension, and issued 
" A General Proclamation for the Information of the Chiefs 
of the Lahore Durbar, the Priests, Elders and People of the 
countries belonging to the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh." 

After stating that the interest felt by the Governor- 
General in the welfare of the boy-king was that of a father, 
he proceeded to explain the need for a separation — because 
of the mother's increasing intrigues to thwart all efforts 
for the country's good; because " the maharajah is now 
a child and he will grow up in the way that he is trained, 
... his mother would instil into him her own bitter feel- 
ings of hostility to the Chiefs; " because " every seditious 
intriguer who was displeased with the present order of 
things looked up to the Queen-Mother as the head of the 
State." Lord Hardinge wrote that he " entirely approved 
of the judicious terms in which the proclamation was 
worded," and added that,^ " If I have any difference of 
opinion with you, it consists in your liberality in attempting 
at too early a period to train the Sikh authorities to walk 
alone; I wish them to feel and to like our direct interfer- 
ence by the benefits conferred." 

The maharani was eventually conveyed to Benares, 
whence she escaped into Nepal, and after remaining there 
some years, finally made her way to her son's castle in 
England, where she died. Mr. Batten (John Lawrence's 
college chum) has told a good story with regard to the 

' Life of Sir Henry Laivrence, vol. ii. p. loi. 



The Lawrences and Their Punjabis 135 

mischief she might have wrought during the Mutiny had 
she been permitted to enter the Punjab. Mr. Batten had 
becom.e acquainted, as Commissioner of Kumaon, with 
Jung Bahadur, Henry Lawrence's Gurkha friend. During 
a conversation soon after the capture of Lucknow (for which 
feat of arms the Gurkha took chief credit, whilst recognis- 
ing that Sir Cohn Campbell was entitled to a share) Jung 
Bahadur observed: " ' You see I remained straight and 
true, and that was useful to your government in very bad 
times.' I said, ' Suppose you had not remained loyal 
what would you have done? ' ' Why,' said he, ' I would 
have let down the Maharani of Lahore on Jan Larens, 
and then what would England have done ? ' I told this to 
Sir John Lawrence at Simla in 1864, and he said that Jung 
overrated his power, but that the Maharani would have 
been an * awfully troublesome customer ' in the Punjab."^ 
That the Prime Minister of Nepal should consider, and that 
John Lawrence should acknowledge as possible, that this 
woman's influence among the Sikhs, even after an absence 
of ten years, might have brought about a different ending 
to the Sepoy War, proves how great was the triumph of 
Henry Lawrence in removing her baneful influence without 
outcry or excitement. 

* Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 237. 



CHAPTER XIV 

(1847-1848) 

THE SECOND SIKH WAR 

Henry's Liberality — Benefits of His Rule — His Health breaks 
down, and John officiates for Him — Henry returns to England 
— The Multan Revolt— Fatal Delay— Herbert Edwardes— The 
Punjab Ablaze. 

Turn aside for a space from affairs of state to glance at 
interests of a more directly personal nature. Henry 
Lawrence, whose enfeebled frame could but ill support the 
heat of Lahore, was compelled to pay occasional visits to 
the life-giving hills, and his place at Lahore was then taken 
by John. In August 1846 he set out with Lieutenant 
Hodson to find the most suitable site for his asylum, and 
they pitched upon the hill of Sanawar, among the Hima- 
layan pines and deodars. Hodson, who was greatly 
devoted to him, undertook the secretarial duties connected 
with the asylum, and carried them through with the 
energy and skill for which even the severest of his critics 
gave him credit. 

Interest in the welfare of his pet project did not, 
however, leave Henry Lawrence cold towards other 
charities. For several years — since his increase of salary 
on appointment to Nepal — he had put aside ;;f400 a year 
for distribution by his friend Mr. Marshman to worthy 
institutions in the Calcutta district.^ The Lawrences 

^ These included: — Dr. McGowan's Hospital, the Fever Hospital, 
the Serampore Native Hospital, the European Female Orphan 
Society, the Sailors' Home, the District Charitable Society, the 
Benevolent Institution, the Free Church, Calcutta, the Church 

136 



The Second Sikh War 137 

were members of the Church of England, but wherever 
they happened to have influence it was exercised on 
behalf of missionaries, without regard to sect or race. 
" Differences about bishops look very small under the 
shadow of an idol with twelve heads," wrote Sir Herbert 
Edwardes. 

When Henry and John were together in Lahore they 
appear to have lived under conditions that would have 
incurred condemnation by a housing commission. Henry, 
the Patriarch, shared a room with the already-distin- 
guished engineer who afterwards became Lord Napier 
of Magdala; John, his wife, three children, and their 
European servant, had two rooms ; some of the assistants 
were as well off as their chief, and others must needs be 
content with a third of a room — and this was in the plains. 
The candle lighting the room or tent in which they were 
working was frequently stuck in the neck of a bottle, 
and when additional illumination was needed Henry 
observed that some one must first drink a bottle of beer. 
They were then governing twenty millions of people and 
handling a revenue of some hundreds of lacs per annum. 
John would work with his " shirtsleeves turned over his 
arms and a cigar in his mouth," and Henry was even less 
regardful of the conventionalities. These were the happy 
days of Henry Lawrence. 

More had been accomplished during his supremacy at 
Lahore than could have been hoped for by the most 
sanguine student of Anglo-Indian affairs, and he paid the 
penalty in loss of health. A short stay at Simla failed to 
set him up, and towards the close of the year 1847 ^^ 
returned to England, in the company of his warm friend 

Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society, the Baptist 
Missionary Society, the Serampore Missionary Society, the Calcutta 
Auxiliary Bible Society, the Bible Association, the Calcutta Diocesan 
Clergy Society. — Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 46-47. 



138 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

and admirer, Lord Hardinge, whose term of office had 
expired. 

The services he had rendered to the people of the Punjab 
included the introduction of a simplified penal code suited 
to the needs of the country. He had also convened a 
council of fifty lambardars and zaildars (heads of villages 
and of groups of villages) for the purpose of reducing 
" the unwritten customs and morals of the people to a 
written law." One of his greatest difficulties had been due 
to the complications involved in dealing with, and granting 
redress for, outrages and robberies committed before the 
Company had stepped in. It was not easy to get at 
the rights of a case of alleged murder or confiscation of 
property that had taken place some years before, a case 
arising from some dispute whose beginnings might per- 
haps be traced back to the time when Porus reigned over 
the Land of the Five Rivers. After much thought the 
Resident ruled that cognisance should be taken of, and 
redress given for, acts committed during the previous 
three years. 

The Khalsa army had been reduced by more than 
60,000 men, whose arrears had been paid up, much to their 
astonishment, and the discharged warriors were, moreover, 
offered inducements to settle down to civil life. Those 
for whom peace had no attractions soon discovered that 
they would not be allowed to roam and raid at will in free 
companies and robber bands. 

The antagonism of view — not of aim — between the 
brothers had peeped forth once or twice during these 
eighteen months. Henry being absent, and John in 
temporary charge at Lahore, a deputation of the sirdars 
approached the latter with a prayer that they might be 
excused from fulfilling their promise to pay the expenses 
of the British troops on whose presence they were dependent. 
They would willingly pay, but the state coffers were empty. 



The Second Sikh War 139 

and Lord Hardinge, being their " real father," surely 
would not exact tribute from his children. 

John Lawrence waived the ingenuous plea aside. There 
would be plenty of money, said he, if only the Sikh officials 
would deal honestly with the state. To place the kingdom 
upon a sounder financial basis he suggested that tax- 
gatherers should be responsible to the Resident, not to the 
Lahore Government, and that no money should be spent 
without his signature. 

This proposal did not commend itself to Henry, who 
had not lost all hope of training the sirdars to perform 
their duties conscientiously, nor of making them worthy 
of responsibility. He would rather that the state finances 
should be unsatisfactory if only the people were gaining in 
character, honesty, and a sense of duty to their fellows, 
than that the revenue should be large and the nation 
remain unfit to stand alone. A gain in moral strength 
would outweigh a loss of any number of lacs to the revenue. 
Henry regarded the problem from the military and political 
standpoint; John from the financial. The latter under- 
stood better " the importance of a clear balance-sheet," 
and warned his brother that annexation would be in- 
evitable unless the Punjab could pay its way. 

Their differences were fundamental. Henry had a 
larger gift of sympathy ; John was better able to rule on 
scientific principles. Henry acknowledged his brother as 
master in the regions of finance, and John paid un- 
grudging tribute to Henry's finer genius. Here, in a letter 
to Sir John Kaye, is the elder brother's opinion of the 
younger 's aptitude for work. He refers to the days of 
1846 and 1847 when he was Regent and John his right 
hand man. ^ " Each of my assistants was a good man. 
The most were excellent officers. My chief help, however, 
was my brother John, without whom I must have had 
1 Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 298. 



140 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

difficulty in carrying on. . . . He gave me always such 
help as only a brother could." But in his zeal to save 
the country from bankruptcy John Lawrence forgot at 
times that the Punjab was not a " district " of British 
India, and that the Resident, for whom he was acting, was 
after all the " friendly adviser " of the maharaja's council. 
The sirdars soon perceived that he was no friend of their 
order; they compared him unfavourably with his brother, 
and found his yoke too heavy. 

Though well aware that John would take a line divergent 
from his own, if freed from his control, Henry was con- 
vinced that his younger brother was the statesman best 
fitted to rule the Punjab, in his absence, for the benefit of 
the natives. Before leaving India he recommended that 
John should continue as Acting - Resident, but Lord 
Hardinge, albeit one who believed in the Commissioner of 
the Jalandar Doab, evidently considered that so important 
a post should be conferred upon one senior in service; 
or, perhaps, he was afraid, not of being thought, but 
actually of being, too much under Henry Lawrence's 
influence, and Sir Frederick Currie was appointed Resident 
at Lahore. The appointment was in some respects un- 
fortunate. Sir Frederick was a distinguished civil servant, 
but his knowledge of the Sikhs had not been acquired on 
the spot. He well deserved to be had in honour, but he 
had no desire that promotion should take this form, and 
there is reason to believe that he only accepted because 
he was under the delusion that his temporary holding of the 
office would oblige the Lawrences. As he could not take 
up the reins at once John was left in charge at Lahore 
until the middle of March. On April 3, 1848, three weeks 
after Currie's arrival, John returned to Jalandar. 

On the homeward voyage Lord Hardinge penned a 
strong recommendation that Colonel Henry Lawrence's 
exceptional services should be marked in a manner befitting 



The Second Sikh War 141 

the occasion. Within a month of his arrival in England 
Lawrence was made a K.C.B., and that which Mr. Huddle- 
stone had foretold to Letitia had come to pass. He had 
been parted from wife and children for little more than two 
years, a short enough period judged by the Anglo-Indian 
standard of that day, but this was the first time they had 
been in England together since the discovery that they 
were all in all to one another, and there were the scenes of 
old years to revisit, distant memories and associations to 
recall. 

And while they were planning what to do with the un- 
accustomed holiday, India had already begun to regret 
his absence, to realise that as yet no man was able to fill 
his place in the Punjab. Mulraj of Multan had shot his 
bolt; the south-western province had risen against the 
British. The sparks from Multan were blown northward; 
the combustible material burst into flame, and on aU sides 
rose up fanatics to pour oil on the fire, calling upon their 
followers to " strike for God and the Guru." The military 
instincts of the hardy peasantry were aroused; they 
remembered their former prowess and the days of Ranjit 
Singh; they beat their ploughshares into swords, left the 
fields to the women, and hurried to the fray. 

Sir Henry Lawrence had not fondly imagined that the 

Punjab was reconciled to British rule. " If every Sikh 

and Sirdar in the Punjab," he had declared to Lord 

Hardinge, " were to avow himself satisfied ... it would 

be the extreme of infatuation to believe him." ^ He did 

not hesitate now; his place was in the Punjab; there 

could be no rest for body or mind while his own province 

was calling unto him. Each post brought worse news; 

the revolt was spreading and the Government of India was 

doing nothing to check it. There was one gleam of light, 

one patch of blue, through the lowering clouds. Away on 

* Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. i. pp. 13-14. 

K 



142 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the far side of Multan, cut off from all succour, his friend 
and pupil. Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes, was upholding 
England's honour, defeating and shutting up the army of 
Mulraj with a handful of raw Sikh and Mussulman levies. 
And his own chosen lieutenants — John Lawrence in the 
Jalandar Doab, George at Peshawar (where he was soon 
to endure a second captivity), Nicholson, Abbott, Reynell 
Taylor, Cocks, and others of his own men — were holding 
their own in their isolated posts, separated one from the 
other by hundreds of miles, while the great Indian army 
lay inactive. How bitter must have been the thought 
that his work was undone. The news was a shock, but a 
stimulant no less. He wrote at once offering to return to 
duty. 

The big province of Multan had been governed despoti- 
cally by Mulraj , who had succeeded his father, Sawan Mull, 
the best and most popular of Ranjit Singh's viceroys. 
Had the British regency not been appointed in the Punjab, 
Mulraj would no doubt have taken advantage of the 
prevailing anarchy to carve out for himself an independent 
sovereignty. He had been paying a tribute of twenty-one 
lacs of rupees to Lahore — and probably squeezing double 
that amount out of his people — and he now declined to 
account for the revenue of his province. Therefore John 
Lawrence had granted him safe conduct to Lahore and 
had attempted to reason with him. In a fit of temper 
Mulraj had resigned his governorship and, much to 
his surprise, had been taken at his word. The Acting- 
Resident — his brother warmly approving — had thereupon 
appointed Mr. Arthur Cocks to Multan, to assess the 
province afresh, but as Henry was on the point of departure 
for England, the Governor-General had ordered the 
appointment to be left over until Sir Frederick Currie 
could take charge. 

Cocks was an able officer who knew the countr}^ and 



The Second Sikh War 



H3 



could handle Punjabis, and the Lawrences wished him to be 
there before the hot weather. But red-tape had prevailed ; 
Cocks had been otherwise employed, and when Currie 
took up his duties at Lahore he sent Lieutenant Anderson 
and Mr. Vans Agnew to Multan in charge of the new 
governor. As they passed through the fort gates the two 
Englishmen were struck down, and the greater part of their 
escort promptly deserted and cast in its lot with the 
assassins. A few sepoys bravely defended the wounded 
of&cers, but in vain, and both were murdered. Though 
there is no proof that the crime had been premeditated by 
Mulraj, he determined to profit by it, and issued a pro- 
clamation calling upon the Punjab to cast off the English 
yoke. 

From the Doab John Lawrence urged the Government 
to despatch a force to Multan without a day's unnecessary 
delay, and so prevent the spread of the revolt. The hot 
season had begun, and Multan has an evil reputation for 
heat, but, conceding the perils of the climate, he pressed 
the conviction that delay was still more dangerous. 

When Imam-ud-din had raised his standard in Kashmir 
Henry Lawrence had delivered his knock-down blow at 
once, and won, and saved much bloodshed. Had he 
shown hesitation his Sikh troops would have gone over to 
the rebel. He did not, and his force of character and 
promptness to act averted a costly campaign. Had he 
now been in the Punjab to support his brother's views, 
no doubt his prestige among the Sikhs and his influence 
with the Council would have prevailed, and a few weeks 
might have seen the collapse of the rising. " Had Law- 
rence been at our head now," wrote Lumsden, within a 
fortnight of the outbreak," we should have been in Multan 
by this time." 

But Sir Hugh Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, afraid 
of no man, recklessly brave, yet dreaded a campaign in the 



144 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

hot season; and Lord Dalhousie, being new to India, for 
once bowed to the opinion of others. It was the only 
mistake of the kind that he made during his masterful 
and brilliant career as Governor-General. Sir Frederick 
Currie was in favour of immediate action, but his position 
was less strong than that of his predecessor, and he could 
not speak with equal authority; and John's insistent 
letters, pointing out what must ensue as soon as the Sikhs 
should realise that British officers might be murdered 
with impunity, were disregarded, or at least they failed of 
their effect. Instead of the needed flying column to deal 
with Mulraj, preparations were deliberately made for what 
Henry bitterly termed " a grand shikar [hunt] in the cold 
season under the lead of the Governor-General." 

The whole attention of the Commissioner of the Jalandar 
Doab was presently required in his own district, where a 
number of hill chieftains followed the lead of Mulraj. 
He and his assistants organised a small flying column 
wherewith they conducted a fortnight's campaign in which 
hardly a shot was fired or a sword-cut given, though the 
Jalandar Doab and the hill-states were thereby secured 
against the horrors of war. 

In each district through which he passed the chieftains 
and headmen were ordered to attend, and were given the 
choice of being ruled by the pen or by the sword. " They 
were assembled in scores, and, when a sword and a pen 
were placed before them to select the instrument by which 
they wished to be ruled, the pen was grasped with enthu- 
siasm."^ Promptness, coolness in emergencies, and the 
courage that does not shrink from responsibility, these 
were the qualities shown by the Commissioner and his 
subordinates. 

^ Robert Cust's Pictures of Indian Life, pp. 254-25 5. The statue of 
John Lawrence on the Mall in Lahore commemorates this incident. 
Holding in one hand the sword, in the other the pen, he asks the 
men of the Punjab: " By which will you be governed? " 



The Second Sikh War 145 

Equally admirable were the efforts put forth by Henry's 
disciples to uphold British prestige. Very brilliant were 
the feats of Herbert Edwardes. Engaged in the Revenue 
Survey, in the far country between the Indus and the 
Sulaiman Hills, he heard by chance of the murders. With 
him was a small escort of Sikhs and Mussulmans, and with 
this ridiculous array he crossed the Indus and invited 
Mulraj to " come on," to use his own words " like a terrier 
barking at a tiger." Asking no official sanction he en- 
rolled a number of Pathans — men who bore no love to 
Mulraj— and, giving battle to the Dewan, defeated him 
badly, and actually drove him in confusion back to the 
city walls. Once more Edwardes thrashed his opponent, 
and Mulraj was compelled to shut himself up in his 
fortress. 

" Now is the time to strike," Edwardes wrote. " It 
is painful to see that I have got to the end of my tether." 
He urged the authorities to send " a few heavy guns, a 
mortar battery, a few sappers and miners, and Major 
Robert Napier " to finish the war. The sanguine Edwardes 
probably underestimated the strength of Multan, but who 
knows if he might not have succeeded? England would 
not be ruling India had her sons allowed themselves to be 
checked by the impossible. 

Still no move was made. Operations were so long de- 
layed that by the time General Whish was sent to Multan, 
the Punjab was ablaze and Dost Mohammed remembered 
the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of the English. 
For the first time Sikhs and Afghans were united, and 
Peshawar, the prize for which battles had been lost and 
won, was gracefully conceded to the Barakzai. George 
Lawrence was again a captive to the bow and spear of the 
Pathan. 

" Unwarned by precedent, uninfluenced by example, 
the Sikh nation have called for war and on my word, sirs. 



146 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

they shall have it with a vengeance." So spoke Lord 
Dalhousie as he took the field, and his words were true, 
and there was bitter lamentation in the Punjab. England 
had poured out blood and treasure to help her; her best 
men had toiled for the peace and prosperity of the Sikhs ; 
but the fanaticism of the people and the ambition of 
intriguers had prevailed, and for a time it seemed that the 
British rather than the Sikhs were doomed " to have it 
with a vengeance." For the opening battles of Ram- 
nuggur and Sadalpur went in favour of the aggressor. 

Sir Henry Lawrence arrived before Multan in time to 
take part in the reduction of the town and to receive the 
surrender of Mulraj. Thence he hastened to join the main 
army, and he witnessed the carnage of Chillianwalla, a 
" victory " that spread consternation and horror through- 
out the empire. A cry arose for the supersession of brave 
old Gough, and Sir Charles Napier, the brilliant and erratic, 
was sent out from England as, in 1899, Lord Roberts 
received the nation's mandate to retrieve Buller's disasters. 
So great was the need that the Duke of Wellington declared 
that either Napier or he himself must go. 



CHAPTER XV 

[January -March 1849) 

A NEW ERA IN INDIA 

Henry's Policy overturned — Lord Dalhousie — Gujerat — Henry 
opposes, John urges, Annexation — The Governor - General 
agrees with John. 

The presence of Sir Henry Lawrence in the Punjab was 
heralded by Europeans and natives ahke as a Hght in the 
darkness, an omen of British success, and Lord Dalhousie 
was not pleased. Punjabis and Europeans had freely 
stated that Mulraj would not have dared to raise the 
standard of revolt had Lawrence remained at Lahore. 
■"The Ikhal [prestige] of the great English chief" — so 
said the natives — " had deserted his countrymen," and 
now shone forth this same ikbal to give strength to the 
loyal sirdars and to weaken the resistance of the disloyal. 
Lord Dalhousie, however, preferred that , the Punjab 
should acknowledge British supremacy through the force 
of Britain's armed might, and he took an early opportunity 
to convince Sir Henry that the old order had given place 
to the new, and that the people of the Punjab must now 
regard their former Regent as no more than the servant 
and mouthpiece of the Governor-General.^ 

Before leaving England Sir Henry had received a letter 
from Lord Dalhousie giving him warning of a change in 
policy, and informing him in the plainest terms that the 

^ " I have received the thanks of the Government," Lieutenant 
Lumsden wrote to his father in 1847, and, what I prize more, 
Lawrence's approbation." — Lumsden of the Guides, p. 34. 

147 



148 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

days of Sikh independence had gone by, though there had 
been " no more sincere friend of Lord Hardinge's poHcy 
to estabhsh a strong Hindu government between the Sutlej 
and the Khyber than I." John agreed with the Governor- 
General, and after events have justified their wisdom. 
But it is not easy to give up an ideal. Sir Henry sailed 
for India, suspicious of India's new master and all his ways, 
and the dictatorial tone of subsequent communications 
was not calculated to conciliate. Lord Dalhousie was 
thirty-seven years of age, and a few months of his life had 
been spent in India; Henry Lawrence was forty-two, and 
for twenty-six years India's interests had been his. His 
knowledge of the country and the people was only equalled 
by their trust in him, and the previous Governor-General 
had constantly deferred to his opinion. How galling must 
it have been to his proud spirit to endure the rebukes and 
submit tamely to the dictates of the young " Laird of 
Cockpen! " 

On the day of his arrival in the Punjab he received the 
first intimation that he was no longer supreme, and that 
all men were to understand that the once-powerful Resident 
was there simply to do the bidding of another. An im- 
pression prevailed — probably well founded — that Mulraj. 
having heard of his approach, wished to surrender to him 
in person. Straightway Lord Dalhousie wrote to anticipate 
the granting of unduly favourable terms. " I have to 
inform you," said he, " that I will grant no terms whatever 
to Mulraj, nor listen to any proposal but unconditional 
surrender. If he is captured he shall have what he does 
not deserve — a fair trial." 

Sympathy in the disputes that arose wiU generally be 
found on the side of Henry Lawrence, the Christian warrior 
and statesman, so humble in his pride, who knew so well, 
and fought so bravely against, his hot temper and too 
great " touchiness," the two faults of a character otherwise 



A New Era in India 149 

almost blameless. We call to mind his restless champion- 
ship of the poor and weak, the despised and oppressed; 
how in poverty or comparative wealth he deemed his 
money a trust to be used for others. His influence over 
the strong men of the Punjab is remembered — how he 
was proudly acknowledged as master by perhaps the 
finest group of administrators ever set over a subject state, 
by men who were themselves held in awe, and even 
worshipped by the Punjabis ; masterful men like John 
Nicholson who — refusing to bow the head to any other 
superior, even to John Lawrence or Lord Dalhousie — 
would humbly acquiesce in Henry's lightest wish; like 
Hodson of Hodson's Horse, who, arrogant and high- 
handed and too well aware of his own ability, yet did 
homage gladly to him whom he revered. 

But we must not take for granted that, because his was 
the more lovable nature and his experience the greater, 
Henry Lawrence was in the right in all his disputes with 
the Governor-General. For many years his ambition had 
been to train the Punjab to take its place among the nations 
of the earth, acknowledging British suzerainty yet work- 
ing out its own salvation, and he was loth to renounce the 
ideal. On the other hand Lord Dalhousie was convinced 
that there would be small prospect of peace for India until 
the Khalsa had been crushed and the Sikhs forced to 
acknowledge that the English were their masters. This 
lesson taught, their affairs must then be administered by 
Englishmen, and the natives treated as children unfit to 
govern themselves and ignorant of their own good. He 
was not necessarily in the wrong because he differed from 
his greatest subject. 

What would have happened had Sir Henry been allowed 
a free hand no man can say. But this we know, that the 
Punjab, administered by the Lawrences in accordance with 
the theories of Lord Dalhousie, not only gained peace and 



150 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

prosperity, but soon became the model province, and after 
eight years' experience as British subjects her sons saved 
India for the English. But could this have been achieved 
without the La'v^Tence influence ? 

Throughout his tenure of office Lord Dalhousie was 
actuated by a lofty sense of duty. His evident self-con- 
fidence was never conceit ; it was justified by his splendid 
abilities and high character, and, after all, he it was who 
was responsible for the conduct of Indian affairs, and he 
meant to be ruler in fact as well as in name. He believed 
in himself, and, having discovered at this early date that 
evil had come from deference to the opinions of his advisers, 
he apparently renounced the practice for all time. He 
would have failed in his duty had he sanctioned measures 
which he — with exceptional mental grip — sincerely believed 
to be injurious to the country placed under his care. And 
Lord Dalhousie has never been accused of having shirked 
a duty, however unpleasant to himself or others. 

Granting this we may still regret that he did not consider 
it worth while to tone down his expressions of opinion 
and speak with some show of deference to one who was his 
senior in years and experience, and his superior in greatness ; 
who had served the state with such noteworthj^ self- 
sacrifice. It must be acknowledged that Sir Henry erred 
greatly in his disputes with the Governor-General by dis- 
playing an aptness to take offence regrettable in so good 
and great a man. He jumped to conclusions which were 
not warranted and was inclined to regard as slights, or 
even insults, words and phrases which — though they had 
been better expressed differently — were not meant to stab. 
His sensitive nature would not permit him to understand 
and make allowance for Lord Dalhousie 's very different 
temperament. 

From this time forward Henry Lawrence's career was 
to be one of disappointment. Happily for the Punjab 



A New Era in India i 5 i 

his work suffered from no diminution of energy and his 
devotion to the good of others continued as great as ever, 
albeit he lacked the joy in the work that had hitherto been 
his. 

Lord Dalhousie was clever, earnest, upright, and devoted 
to his duty. And his conception of duty was not narrow. 
He had resolved to work with all his heart, mind, soul, 
and strength for the greatest good of the greatest number, 
and to attain this end he never spared himself. Here 
surely was a man after Henry Lawrence's own heart, and 
what could arise to prevent these two, so similar in character, 
so earnest in striving after the same ideals, from working 
harmoniously together? 

Lord Dalhousie lacked sympathetic imagination, the 
gift that enables its possessor to see through the eyes of 
others, to calculate the effect of each new thing upon minds 
dissimilar to his own, differently prejudiced as the result 
of a very different environment. He had little patience 
with the native point of view, especially in the early days. 
His duty was to make India prosperous, and, " please God, 
I will obey." If the natives of India — more sharp-witted 
than the English peasant — have a method of reasoning 
differing from that of Europeans, then to reason with them 
would obviously be vain. Results must speak for them- 
selves. 

Henry Lawrence stood as firm as the Governor-General 
against any compromise between right and wrong, but he 
could see, and feel sympathy with, the Oriental point of 
view, and would never ride rough-shod over native pre- 
judices even for the good of the natives themselves. Under- 
standing their feelings he had a better chance of reasoning 
with them and of explaining the benefits to be expected 
from a proposed reform. But as Lord Dalhousie did not 
feel the want of imagination, nor ever know how greatly 
his good work in India suffered from its absence, he does 



152 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

not seem to have approved of those quahties in his chief 
subordinate, and had probably determined what Hne to take 
with him before he had even seen him. 

" You say you are grieved at all you saw and heard 
at Lahore," he wrote after Chillianwalla — and one could 
have wished for a different tone towards him who held the 
foremost place in men's hearts in India — " so was I — so 
I have long been ; but I don't know whether our griefs are 
on the same tack." 

Before the decisive battle of Gujerat had ground the 
Khalsa into the dust, Sir Henry had, with the consent of 
the Governor-General, drafted a proclamation to the Sikh 
nation, pointing out the folly of resistance and the wisdom 
of laying down their arms. To this Sir Henry, who 
regarded the Sikhs as erring children rather than as deadly 
foes, added some expression of his personal interest in their 
welfare, and the addition was probably an appeal to the 
sirdars' knowledge of and confidence in his friendship. 
Had he published the proclamation without first sub- 
mitting the addition for approval one might understand 
the displeasure of such an autocrat as Lord Dalhousie. 
But he did not step outside the limits of his office, and the 
mere proposal to include the expression of personal feeling 
surely could not justify a rebuke so stinging. 

Ferozepore, February i, 1849. 

In my conversation with you a few days ago I took occasion 
to say to you that my mode of conducting pubhc business, in the 
administration with which I am entrusted, and especially with the 
confidential servants of the Government, are, to speak with perfect 
openness, without any reserve, and plainly to tell my mind without 
disguise or mincing of words. In pursuance of that system, I now 
remark on the proclamation you have proposed. It is objectionable 
in matter, because, from the terms in which it is worded, it is 
calculated to convey to those who are engaged in this shameful 
war an expectation of much more favourable terms, much more 
extended immunity from punishment, than I consider myself 
justified in granting them. It is objectionable in manner: because 
(unintentionally, no doubt) its whole tone substitutes you personally, 



A New Era in India 153 

as the Resident at Lahore, for the Government which you represent. 
It is calculated to raise the inference that a new state of things is 
arising; that the fact of your arrival with a desire to bring peace 
to the Punjaub is likely to affect the warlike measures of the Govern- 
ment; and that you are come as a peacemaker for the Sikhs, as 
standing between them and the Government. This cannot be. . . . 
There must be entire identity between the Government and its 
agent, whoever he is. . . . I repeat, that I can allow nothing to be 
said or done, which should raise the notion that the policy of the 
Government of India, or its intentions, depend on your presence 
as Resident in the Punjaub. ... I am very willing that a pro- 
clamation should be issued by you, but bearing evidence that it 
proceeds from Government. It may notify that no terms can be 
given, but unconditional submission; yet that, on submission being 
immediately made, no man's life shall be forfeited for the part he 
has taken in hostilities against the British Government.^ 

Sir Henry replied as follows : — 

Lahore, February 5. 

I have written the proclamation in the terms I understand your 
lordship to desire ; but any alteration made in it, or the letter, by 
your order will be duly attended to when the translations are 
prepared. I may, however, observe, the Natives do not understand 
" unconditional surrender." They know that, with themselves, it 
implies murder and spoliation. As, therefore, life and security 
from imprisonment is promised to the soldiers, I would suggest 
that the words " unconditional surrender" be omitted, as they may 
be made use of by the ill - disposed to blind others to the real 
conditions. . . . 

My own opinion, as already more than once expressed in 
writing to your lordship, is against annexation. I did think it 
unjust: I now think it impolitic. It is quite possible I may be 
prejudiced and blinded; but I have thought over the subject long 
and carefully. However, if I had not intended to have done my 
duty under all circumstances, conscience permitting, I should not 
have hurried out from England to have taken part in axrangements 
that, under any circumstances, could not but have in them more of 
bitterness than all else for me. 

But how bitter the task would prove he had not yet 
realised. Lord Dalhousie's may have been the right policy, 
but why inflict unnecessary pain ? The Governor-General's 
decision need have been no less decided had it been con- 
veyed in more befitting terms. Sir Henry himself did 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 123-125. 



154 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

not spare the rod even to the dearest of his friends. 
Without reference to his chief Major Herbert Edwardes had 
thought fit to disband a Pathan regiment which had 
behaved badly. But here the rebuke is from a senior in 
age and experience, from one whom Edwardes was proud 
to call his master, of whose love and esteem he was assured. 

" Lieutenant Young has behaved admirably as a soldier; 
but where would be the end of men acting on their own 
responsibility if not only you, but he, could without refer- 
ence to me, disarm and discharge a regular regiment for an 
offence committed months ago? If such is right, there is 
no need of a Resident at all. . . . Just now, when you are 
only recovering from a sick bed, I am sorry to have to find 
fault with you, but I have no alternative in this matter. 
The times have loosened discipline, but the sooner it is 
returned to, the better for all parties. . . . You will not 
mistake me. You know me to be your friend, I hope in 
the best sense. I know and admire your excellent qualities ; 
I fully appreciate the good service you have done, and have 
most gladly borne testimony to them ; but this is not the 
first time we have had a discussion of this kind: I most 
sincerely hope it will be the last." ^ 

Compare Lord Dalhousie's comment on this reprimand. 

" I am greatly surprised with what you write to me 
about Major Edwardes, or rather, I should say I am greatly 
vexed, but not surprised at all. . . . But I further wish 
to repeat what I said before, that there are more than 
Major Edwardes in the Residency, who appear to consider 
themselves, nowadays, as Governor-General at least. The 
sooner you set about disenchanting their minds of this illu- 
sion the better for your comfort and their own. . . . For 
my part, I will not stand it in quieter times for half an 
hour, and will come down unmistakeably upon any one 
of them who may ' try it on,' from Major Edwardes, C.B., 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 126. 



A New Era in India 



^55 



down to the latest enlisted general-ensign-plenipotentiary 
in the establishment." 

We are not permitted to entertain any doubt of Lord 
Dalhousie's ability to chastise his subordinates with words 
well-chosen and unambiguous. The autocrat, who seemed 
to take delight in lashing his officers to heel, might be 
respected but hardly loved. Certainly not until he himself 
had been tested and proved. While recognising equally 
the folly of any neglect to point out to an erring junior that 
he is exceeding his authority — even when the delinquent 
has just been rightly acclaimed as a hero — both Henry and 
John Lawrence understood men too well to hurt a good 
worker's pride for the sake of a stinging phrase. We shall 
see later how the younger brother dealt with Nicholson 
when that most wonderful man turned refractory. 

Sir Henry Lawrence would derive little satisfaction from 
contemplation of the fact that the Governor-General was 
even less pleased with the performance of others. Lord 
Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, was a distinguished 
soldier, one of the bravest of men and best loved of generals. 
Rash he probably was, but in considering the checks he 
encountered we must bear in mind that the Khalsa army 
was excellently armed and trained, and that in courage and 
prowess the Sikhs were far superior to the poorheah ^ sepoys 
opposed to them. Unlike his predecessor Lord Dalhousie 
was no soldier and he failed to appreciate the magnitude 
of the task. The following extracts from his letters to Sir 
Henry (quoted by Mr. Bosworth Smith) bear witness to his 
typical " cocksureness " and his proneness to censure. 

" Everything in the camp as far as the Commander-in- 
Chief is concerned grows worse and worse. ... I have 
written to him to-day on his future proceedings in terms 
which I am sure will be distasteful to him." 

^ " The man from the East," a term applied first to the Oudh 
sepoys in the Bombay army, and, in later years, to all mutineers. 



156 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Again, in reply to Sir Henry's request that he might be 
allowed to join the field force in order to impart vigour and 
prudence to the counsels. 

" It is already too notorious that neither you nor any- 
body else can exercise any wholesome influence on the 
mind of the Commander-in-Chief ; if you could have done 
so, the action of Chillianwalla would never have been 
fought as it was fought. . . . Moreover, I have my orders. 
I am ordered, in the first instance, to conquer the country. 
Please God, I will obey. 

" What ' thought ' the Camp of the Commander-in-Chief 
has signifies very little. The camp's business is to find 
fighting; I find thought; and such thought as the camp 
has hitherto found is of such d — d bad quality, that it does 
not induce me to forego the exercise of my proper 
functions." ^ 

Before Sir Charles Napier could take over the command 
the old general had fought the battle of Gujerat. The 
heroic Sikhs were crushed and Lord Gough had retrieved 
his honour. A more complete victory against odds has 
seldom been won, and the result was due to the generalship 
of the victor, not to any lack of courage on the part of the 
vanquished. " Ranjit Singh is dead to-day," was the 
phrase — at once expressive and pathetic — used by the 
Sikh chiefs as they gave up their swords and watched their 
followers adding to the pile of surrendered arms. 

The Punjab lay at the feet of the victors. Sir Henry 

admitted that the Sikhs had forfeited all right to the 

empire Ranjit Singh's genius had created, but he still 

^ A comment in Lord Dalhousie's diaxy shows, however, his 
appreciation of the quaUties that had made Lord Gough the idol 
of the men he commanded. On receiving the news of the honours 
given to his subordinates for their services at Gujerat, the old 
general's delight was so manifest that Lord Dalhousie wrote: " I 
truly believe that his warm, generous old heart exults in the success 
of his officers quite as much as in his own Viscounty." — Lee Warner's 
Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, vol. i. p. 230. 



A New Era in India 157 

cherished the hope that they might yet be taught to con- 
duct their own affairs under Enghsh supervision. John, 
originally an opponent of annexation and no more ready to 
cry " Vae Victis " than his brother, was now satisfied that 
in British rule lay the only hope for the Punjab. 

Lord Dalhousie invited Sir Henry to confer with him 
respecting the arrangements for converting the Punjab into 
a province of India. Henry was willing that John should 
go in his stead, influenced no doubt partly by what he 
considered as the lack of confidence shown by the Governor- 
General, and partly by the sentiment that his brother, in 
whom he had complete trust, was more in sympathy with 
his lordship's views, and would therefore do better than 
one whose heart was not in his work. So John Lawrence 
advised immediate annexation — urged it upon Lord Dal- 
housie, who, in truth, required no urging. He had already 
decided, and Sir Henry tendered his resignation, feeling 
that he did right to retire from the post he loved so well in 
favour of one who was in more complete accord with the 
Governor-General. 

But Lord Dalhousie — who, after all, is one of the grandest 
figures in Anglo-Indian records — did not underrate the 
value of the Resident's services. He spoke his mind freely 
and was always more ready to blame than to praise, and, 
lacking imagination, he does not at this period seem to 
have been able to understand why his subordinate should 
object, when his outspokenness was so obviously for the 
good of the state. 

" As for your not having my confidence," he had written 
two or three weeks earlier, " differences of opinion must 
not be understood as withdrawal of confidence. You give, 
and wiU, I hope, continue to give, me your views frankly. 
I shall give you, in reply, my opinions as frankly. If we 
differ, I shall say so; but my saying so ought not to be 
interpreted to mean want of confidence. Be assured, if 

L 



158 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

ever I lose confidence in your services, than which nothing 
is further from my contemplation, I will acquaint you of 
the fact promptly enough." 

Most excellent advice! but Lord Dalhousie's defect did 
not permit him to regard the situation from the sub- 
ordinate's standpoint. It is more easy for a superior to 
speak " frankly " than for a junior, and more satisfactory 
withal. 

When Lord Dalhousie pointed out how, by remaining 
in office, he could soften the fall of the Sikhs and ensure 
the just and kindly treatment of the conquered people, 
Henry Lawrence was induced to withdraw his resignation. 

On March 30, 1849, the Punjab was proclaimed a British 
province and the Punjab Board of Administration was 
formed, with Sir Henry as President and John Lawrence 
and Mr. Mansel the remaining members. The province 
was not to be governed by Regulations, but by despotism 
pure and simple — the form of government most conducive 
to progress when the right man is in the right place. 



CHAPTER XVI 

(1849-1851) 

THE PUNJAB BOARD 

A Rule of Three — Disarmament — The Frontier Force — The Guides 
— Thuggee and Dacoity stamped out — Pubhc Works — The 
Province pays its Way — The "Punjab Head" — John's 
Capacity for Work. 

Lord Dalhousie's Board of Administration was an 
experiment in India and its speedy failure was foretold. 
But the Governor-General knew what he wanted, and for 
nearly four years the Board did that which he wanted and 
did it well. Henry Lawrence took to himself the political 
and military duties, the management of the sirdars, the 
raising of Sikh and Punjabi corps, and the disarmament 
of the old army; John was responsible for finance and 
civil administration; and Mr. Mansel, a civilian of dis- 
tinction and a philosopher to boot, for judicial affairs. 
Under the control of the Board were more than fifty 
commissioners, deputies, and assistants, Henry's Punjabis 
having been reinforced by a number of highly trained 
civilians,^ who had sat with John Lawrence at the feet of 
James Thomason in the North- West Provinces. 

It is not difficult to realise that the Punjab Board had 
been set a task impossible of speedy and satisfactory 
accomplishment by any save a Hercules among adminis- 
trators. On the one hand a conquered people, sullen and 
vicious, brave and apt in war, insolent in proportion to 

^ These included Montgomery, Macleod, Barnes, Raikes, Cust, 
and the Thorntons. 

159 



i6o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

their ignorance, hating the foreigner and resolved to place 
obstacles in the way of reform ; a vast country, stretching 
for five hundred miles north to south and nearly as much 
east to west, from the snows to the tropical desert, con- 
taining fruitful valleys, plains yellow with corn, and arid 
wastes of great extent, a country without roads and, 
practically, without laws, where — 

.... the good old rule 
Sufficeth them, the simple plan 
That they should take who have the power. 
And they should keep who can. 

On the other hand a few Englishmen, as determined to 
triumph over all obstacles as were their subjects to obstruct, 
ruling in order to serve, with a singleness of heart and a 
devotion to duty pleasant for Englishmen to contemplate. 
The Punjab had been conquered once by the sword; they 
were about to effect its further conquest after another 
fashion. 

No mild Hindus were these Punjabis, but lovers of strife, 
whose sires had lived by the strength of their own right 
arms, and the Board's first need was to disarm the people 
and so render hopeless any attempt to break out. The 
next move would be to take away any desire for such an 
outbreak, to turn hatred into respect, to make plain to the 
conquered that their rulers were working to befriend them, 
not to despoil; to convince them that less licence might 
be consistent with greater freedom. 

In those days the Punjabi carried arms as a matter of 
course, and the disarming called for tact, firmness, and 
knowledge of character. Even those who, in their wisdom, 
recognised the futility of a third attempt to break the 
power of the " Great Lord Company," objected strongly 
to the surrender of their weapons of defence in a land 
where violence had run riot, where human life was held as 
naught. The Punjab was still ravaged by robber-bands. 



The Punjab Board 1 6 1 

whose members were often the best men of a district, 
for their profession was held in no dishonour. 

To Sir Henry Lawrence had been entrusted the charge 
of mihtary affairs, and he disarmed the populace with little 
difficulty. In the Derajat, the country between the Indus 
and the Afghan hills, sanction was given to retain arms 
for defence against the tribesmen. Here is the memo- 
randum he issued for the use of officers engaged in the 
work : — 

" Immediately on your arrival [in each village] call the 
headmen, and inform them that it is the order of the 
Durbar that they give up all arms and ammunition, and 
allow two hours for their doing so ; keep your men together, 
and on the alert; do not search, but give the headmen 
distinctly to understand, that if arms are hereafter dis- 
covered to be in their villages, they wiU be individually 
held to be responsible, and will be liable to imprisonment 
and to have all their property confiscated. Take a note 
of the names of the headmen who appear before you. 
Inform them that no man in their villages is henceforward 
permitted to carry arms unless he is in the service of the 
State." 1 

He enrolled a number of the disbanded soldiers in the 
new cavalry and infantry regiments, and his famous Punjab 
Irregular Frontier Force (the " Piffers ") was made subject 
to the Board, not to the Commander-in-Chief. ^ These Pun- 
jabi Irregulars, whose duty was to shepherd five hundred 
miles of frontier, speedily became at least equal in spirit to 
the best regiments in the sepoy army, and they were far 
superior in physique. They were mainly recruited from 

' Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 172-173. 

^ The P.I.F.F. — it was known as " Nobody's Child " — was not 
placed under the Commander-in-Chief until more than thirty years 
later. It ceased to exist as a separate force on March 31, 1903, 
after fifty years of continual warfare. Probably no body of troops 
has done so much fighting in a similar period, 



1 62 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the Punjabi Mohammedans and frontiersmen of one or other 
of the Pathan tribes, with a sprinkhng of Sikh and Hindu 
Jats. Later, as their suspicions were allayed, the Sikhs 
enlisted in greater numbers, and the superiority of the 
Irregulars became more marked. The Punjabi Mohamme- 
dan has never received the recognition his services have 
deserved. He fought against and for Ranjit Singh, and 
formed a large proportion of the redoubtable Khalsa army. 
But the designation Sikh, being short and easy, has been 
stretched to include the more unwieldy term Punjabi 
Mohammedan, and these followers of the Prophet were the 
men whom Lawrence and Edwardes and Nicholson sent 
down to capture Delhi, while the Sikhs of the Manjha, 
to whom most of the credit has been given, held aloof. 
To this day many regiments known as " Sikhs " contain 
only two or three companies of the disciples of Govind, 
who are, indeed, found in equal numbers in most of the 
Punjabi regiments and Bengal Lancers. 

The Corps of Guides was the most wonderful of the new 
troops raised by Sir Henry Lawrence. It will be remembered 
that, while still a subaltern, he had recommended the 
formation of such a corps, and as Regent, in 1846, he had 
been able to carry out his long-deferred scheme, starting 
with a single troop of horse and two companies of infantry, 
and Lieutenant Lumsden (afterwards General Sir Harry 
Lumsden) was placed in command. " The grand object 
of the corps," to quote Major Hodson, who helped Law- 
rence to raise the Guides, "is to train a body of men in 
peace to be efficient in war ; not only to be acquainted with 
localities, roads, rivers, hills, ferries, and passes, but have 
a good idea of the produce and supplies available in any 
part of the country; to give accurate information, not 
running open-mouthed to say that 10,000 horsemen and a 
thousand guns are coming (in true native style), but to 
stop to see whether it may not be really only a common 



The Punjab Board 163 

cart and a few wild horsemen who are kicking up the dust ; 
to call twenty-five by its right name, and not say fifty for 
short, as most natives do. This, of course, wants a great 
deal of careful instruction and attention. Beyond this 
the officers should give a tolerably correct sketch and 
report of any country through which they may pass, be 
au fait at routes and means of feeding troops, and above 
all — and here you come close upon practical duties — keep 
an eye on the doings ' of the neighbours ' and the state of 
the country, so as to be able to give such information as 
may lead to any outbreak being nipped in the bud,"^ 
Lumsden laid down as requirements for his cavalry, not 
only proved courage and good horsemanship, but that 
every trooper must also be " a good horsemaster, whose 
horse is as the apple of his eye." 

The Corps of Guides was increased to a thousand men and 
was recruited along the frontier regardless of race, caste, 
or creed. The pay was good ; a pension provided for the 
future; the prospect of fighting and excitement was as 
promising as could be desired by the most fastidious Pathan, 
and, above all, the corps was to be select. None but men 
noted for pluck, endurance, local knowledge, and presence 
of mind could wear the khaki of the Guides. As to moral 
character, that was another story. 

To stiffen the corps Sir Henry asked Jung Bahadur for 
permission to recruit a number of Gurkhas, and a company 
of these tough little warriors was formed. It was thought 
that their known loyalty would be a safeguard against 
possible treachery or impatience of discipline — failings too 
common among the tribesmen. 

But the corps has ever, even in time of greatest trial, 
proved its trustworthiness. Though composed of many 
races and religions, no race or sect can claim precedence in 
respect to loyalty and courage. 

1 Captain Trotter, A Leader of Light Horse, p. 58, 



164 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

As an illustration of the manner in which recruiting was 
carried on in those early days, and of the kind of men who 
have made the name of the Guides so renowned, the 
following anecdotes may be related. 

Shortly after the raising of the corps a notorious free- 
booter, Fateh Khan, kept the Guides fruitlessly employed 
for many weary months : — 

But ever a blight on their labours lay 

And ever their quarry would vanish away; 

The word of a scout, — a march by night, 

A rush through the mist, — a scattering fight. 

The flare of a village, — the tally of slain 

And . . . the [Khan] was abroad on the raid again. 

In despair Lumsden despatched a message convejdng his 
admiration and esteem for the robber chief and his band, 
pointing out how injurious this exasperating species of 
warfare must be to the tempers and morals of all concerned, 
and explaining how charmed he would be to appoint Fateh 
Khan as Ressaldar and to take over all his men into the 
Guides Cavalry. The desperadoes accepted the offer and 
distinguished themselves greatly. 

Thirty years later the Guides Cavalry surprised a body of 
Afghan horse at Ali Musjid. Many of these broke through 
and galloped for their lives, but one man soon changed his 
horse's pace to a walk, and, turning round, shook his sword 
in defiance of the levelled carbines. The colonel. Sir 
Francis Jenkins, at once bade his men cease fire and, riding 
forward, called out : 

" Who are you that care so little for your life? " 

" I am Sultan Jan Kazilbash," was the reply, " and I 
don't care a bunch of grapes for you and your Guides." 

" You're a d brave man, anyway," said the colonel. 

" Turn your horse and join my regiment." 

" Well, so I will," Sultan Jan replied, and straightway 
rode into the ranks of his late enemies, took the oath of 



The Punjab Board 165 

allegiance to the Great Queen, and fought for her throughout 
the Afghan War. 

The Corps of Guides quickly justified Lawrence's youth- 
ful recommendations, and in actions too numerous to be 
related here they have maintained their brilliant reputation. 

A police force of more than fifteen thousand men was 
raised, more than half of whom were military police. 
Their duties were to keep the peace in disturbed districts, 
to break up dacoit bands, to patrol the ever-lengthening 
highways, to protect the traveller from the horrors of the 
mysterious, semi-religious epidemic of Thuggee, to bring 
its devotees to justice — and here John Lawrence's detective 
faculty was brought into play — and, in short, to make 

. . . sure to each his own, 
That he reap where he hath sown. 

In the second year of the Board's administration the 
number of dacoits sentenced to death had fallen to 25 
per cent, of the previous year's total, and by the end of 
the third year dacoity had practically ceased to exist in 
the Punjab. In his Minute of May 1853, the Governor- 
General asserted that " life and property are now, and have 
for some time been, more secure within the bounds of the 
Punjab, which we have held only for four years, than they 
are in the province of Bengal, which has been ours for 
nearly a century." ^ 

Under Ran jit Singh the cultivator and the trader had 
been mercilessly exploited for the benefit of the army, and 
John Lawrence was not slow to perceive that the duties 
levied on every commodity were ruining the country's 
chance of prosperity. He wanted money for public works 
on a grand scale, to raise the Punjab from the state to which 
it had been brought by fifty years' continuous fighting. 
He was ambitious, not only to make both ends meet in 
spite of the unavoidably heavy expense of the new adminis- 
1 Captain Trotter's Life of Lord Dalhousie, p. loo. 



1 66 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

tration, but also to hand over a surplus. Moreover — most 
powerful of all motives — he wished to promote the welfare 
of the millions for whom he was responsible. 

He urged and secured the abolition of taxes on at least 
forty articles, and relied for his chief source of revenue upon 
the land-tax. The wisdom of his fiscal policy was soon 
apparent: in spite of the lighter assessment the Punjab 
began to pay its way; the revenue before long increased 
by 50 per cent., and his dream of a surplus was more 
than realised. At the end of the first three years the 
Punjab had made a profit of more than a million sterling. 
Foremost of the public works undertaken by the Board 
were the extension of the Grand Trunk Road from Delhi 
to Peshawar, a stretch of seven hundred miles, and the con- 
struction of a highway from Lahore to Multan, and of the 
Bari Doab Canal, a boon conferred upon the cultivators of 
the most important and most populous district of the 
Punjab. Colonel Robert Napier, who had been brought in 
by Sir Henry as chief engineer, with Lieutenant Alec 
Taylor and Lieutenant Dyas as assistants, carried out the 
schemes of the Board in such wise that his roads and 
canals are still accounted among the greatest works in 
Asia. The Bari Doab Canal with its numerous arteries 
comprises a length of considerably more than a thousand 
miles. 

No one taking an interest in the Lawrence government 
of the Punjab — from the time of Henry's first appointment 
there as " Regent " — can fail to be struck by the way in 
which names destined to be famous crop up in every dis- 
trict and every branch of the Punjab service. Hardly a 
name, be it of subaltern or deputy-assistant, but brings 
before the mind some scene, crowned by success, with 
which its owner is peculiarly identified. Edwardes at 
Multan and at Peshawar ; Robert Napier of Magdala ; his 
assistant, Alexander Taylor, before Delhi, calmly planning 



The Punjab Board 167 

and carrying out the works which destroyed all hope of 
the Mutiny's success ; Montgomery at Lahore ; " Uncle " ^ 
Abbott among the wild men of the North Country whom 
his goodness had tamed ; John Nicholson wherever the fight 
was fiercest and the need greatest — but the roll is too long. 
It was not chance that flung them into the Punjab at an 
early age. Never did the Lawrences forget, never did they 
underestimate, how much they owed to their assistants; 
nor did their disciples permit any one to remain in ignorance 
of the debt they owed to the wise and patient and Christian 
training of their chiefs. 

After three years' work the Board was able to report 
that " 1349 miles of road have been cleared and con- 
structed; 2487 miles have been traced, and 5272 miles 
surveyed, all exclusive of minor cross and branch roads." ^ 
Waste lands were reclaimed; trees were planted by the 
million and existing forests preserved; the peasant's 
claims to his fields were satisfied ; the breeds of cattle 
and horses were improved ; tobacco, cotton, tea, sugarcane, 
and other crops were introduced from Bengal, and all 
industries encouraged. Before a Lawrence first wielded 
power in the Punjab the land was practically roadless. 
Now town was joined to town and village to village by the 
highways that ran out north, south, east, and west, across 
rivers and canals, through jungle and desert; and it came 
to pass that the people of the Punjab blessed the name of 
Lawrence; and the brothers thanked God that they had 
such good men to carry out and improve their schemes, 
and to suggest and initiate others of their own. And 
Lord Dalhousie visited the Punjab,^ saw the convincing 

1 General Jas. Abbott. 

- Quoted by Mr. Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 264. 

^ It has been said with truth that had Lord Dalhousie possessed 
the gift of sympathetic imagination in a greater degree he would 
have been an even greater Governor-General. But it must not be 
supposed that in an ordinary capacity he would have been thought 



1 68 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

evidences of prosperity, and was impressed by the good 
order and the respect shown to the law. He was proud 
of his " pet province " and of the men who had served 
the state so well. In the older " Regulation " provinces 
progress had been slow; the Punjab, where greater diffi- 
culties had been anticipated, rushed to the front and 
stayed there. 

But a price had to be paid for success. The working 
days of the staff were not limited to the hours popularly 
associated with Government offices at home. John 
Lawrence was without doubt the hardest worked of all, 
and luckily he was the best able to bear the strain. Yet 
even he had to give in at last, but not until he was near 
to death. Sir Henry, who had never recovered from the 
Burmese fever, was the first to succumb. The " Punjabis " 
were no shirkers, but one assistant after another had to be 
sent away to the hills or home to England; and John 
remained at his desk uncomplaining, doing the work of 
two, then of three, then of half a dozen, with his wife as 
private secretary. 

Sir Henry sought relief in travel, examining the progress 
of the new works, paying visits to the chiefs and headmen, 
inspecting his Irregulars who were shepherding the frontier, 
testing the work of his subalterns from Multan to Hazara, 
from Peshawar to Amballa, giving them sound advice 
and that meed of praise for good work which he never 
withheld; and the young men of the Punjab worshipped 
him. In this way he could make the best use of that rare 
gift, described by Mr. Merivale, as " his singular power of 

so deficient in that quality. In the course of this Punjab tour he 
visited Dhulip Singh at Lahore, and was touched by the " winning 
grace " of the boy-maharaja, and when he was greeted with a 
" bright smile " and the words " I am very happy to see you here," 
Dalhousie thought of all the boy had lost through his instrumentality, 
" and for a moment my words were checked, and I could not help 
putting my arm round his neck and drawing him to me." — ^Lee 
Warner's Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, vol. i. p. 278, 



The Punjab Board 169 

attracting to him those among whom he hved, and 
especially those he commanded." Perhaps the most 
wonderful feature of the Punjab administration was its 
tone, and for this the magic of Sir Henry's personality 
was responsible. 

Without doubt such an arrangement was good for the 
Punjab, but it bore hardly upon John, who would also 
have preferred the free and roaming life, " thirty to forty 
miles a day on horseback," to his never-ending ofhce work 
in Lahore. But each brother was doing what was best 
for the state. Though loved by many and admired by all, 
John Lawrence did not possess his brother's magnetic 
personality; the influence that caused the arrogant Sikh 
for the first time in his life to desire to gain approbation 
for its own sake was not John's to wield. Not only did 
the more influential among the Punjabis love Henry 
Lawrence above all men, they also feared him more, being 
convinced of his power as well as of his goodness, and 
John readily admitted that his brother had " a stronger 
grip of men." By his tours from end to end of the land, 
therefore, the President of the Board learned still more 
of the conditions of his people — how his measures had 
affected the well-being of the people, in what manner 
further improvements could best be made, and where it 
might be wise to ease the pressure of some too-rigorous 
reform. His subjects, having thorough confidence in their 
ruler's wish to further their interests, told him more than 
they would have revealed to any other man, and they 
knew him well enough to perceive the folly of any attempt 
to impose upon him. 

On the other hand John easily surpassed his brother 
in finance, in his mastery of details and of all business 
matters. An impressive and dogged worker, less emotional 
and impulsive, his mind, equally with his body, was better 
equipped to defy the effects of overwork. In the years 



170 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

immediately following the annexation, Sir Henry's ex- 
ceptional insight into Oriental character, his personal 
acquaintance with the people and with his assistants 
in their own homes, was all-important. He acted in 
accordance with the advice he gave to subordinates. 

"... I hope you always bear in mind that in a new 
country, especially a wild one, promptness, accessibility, 
brevity, and kindliness are the best engines of government. 
To have as few forms as possible ^ ... to be considerate 
and kind, not expecting too much from ignorant people ; 
to make no change, unless certain of decided improvement 
in the substitute ; light assessment, considering the claims 
and privileges, even when somewhat extravagant, of the 
privileged classes, especially where they affect Government, 
and not Ryots [peasants]." - 

But as the country became more settled, and as, thanks 
largely to the personal intercourse, the Punjabis gained 
confidence in the good faith of the dominant race ; as the 
assistants, inspired by the example of their chief, grew 
better able to stand alone, the routine work increased and 
overshadowed the personal ; and then John Lawrence was 
found to be more in touch with the business of the state, 
and of the two brothers he was indispensable. 

When the Board had been in existence rather more than 
twelve months Sir Henry, already enfeebled, and quite 
unfit to support a summer in the plains, applied for per- 
mission to recruit in the Kashmir highlands, where, though 
on pleasure bent, he proposed to acquaint himself with 
the methods of government employed by his old acquaint- 
ance, Gulab Singh. 

"... I need not assure you," wrote Lord Dalhousie, 
who was plainl}^ anxious lest the extra burden should prove 

1 In later years the complaint has been that the Punjab is cursed 
by overmuch law to the undoing of the immutable ryot and to the 
profit of the money-lender to whom his fields are mortgaged. 

' Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 172. 



The Punjab Board 171 

too much for John, " that I have personally every desire 
to assent to what may be for your benefit; but, however 
much I might wish to consent to measures advantageous 
to your health, I am bound to say in candour that I could 
only consent to this scheme this year, in the hope and 
belief that it will render such absence unnecessary in 
future years. . . . Your absence will necessarily confine 
at present the other members at Lahore. Of Mr. Mansel's 
habits I know nothing ; but it is impossible that, after the 
active movements of your brother's life for so many years, 
imprisonment in one place can be otherwise than bad for 
him. Previous to your departure, therefore, before the 
rains, I would request that he would come up to Simla, 
and meet me there." ^ 

John Lawrence was at length constrained to go to Simla 
for a fortnight, beyond which time Lord Dalhousie could 
not persuade him to stay away from his work. He himself 
was granting no leave except sick-leave — and that only in 
really urgent cases — and though he had gone to the hills 
on the command of his chief, he would make no exception 
to his rule. He refused a holiday to the Governor-General's 
near relative. Lord W. Hay, though a feeler was put forth 
by Lord Dalhousie himself. " The Punjab head," wrote 
Mr. Bosworth Smith, " came to be a proverbial expression 
for the break-down which was the result of overwork." 

At last even the strongest of all had to pay the penalty. 
In October 1850 John Lawrence broke down completely, 
his life being in danger ; and once more he rallied by force 
of will, and within little more than a week was able to start 
on a six months' tour with the Governor-General, 'whose 
esteem he had completely won. " I am terrified at the 
thought of your being compelled to give up work," Lord 
Dalhousie wrote as soon as he heard of the collapse, "... 
and I plead with you to spare yourself for a time as 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 158. 



172 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

earnestly as I would plead to save my own right 
hand." 1 

He retired again to Simla where his wife and children 
were, and broke down again even in that refuge. The 
doctors agreed that he must leave India, but he refused to 
take their advice. " I have made up my mind not to go 
home," he informed Lord Dalhousie, who feared for his 
life. " It would, I think, be suicidal in me, at my age and 
with the claims my children have on me, to do so. My 
health is very uncertain ; I do not think that I have more 
than three or four years of good honest work left in me. 
In May 1855 I shall have served my time, and be entitled 
to my annuity, and, by that time, I shall have saved a 
sufficiency for my own moderate wants and to bring up 
my children. Without making up my mind absolutely to 
retire at that period, I wish to be in a position to be able 
to do so." ^ 

Little did he anticipate the future. 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 31 1. ^ Ibid. vol. i. p. 315. 



CHAPTER XVII 
{1850-1852) 

THE DERRY SCHOOLFELLOWS 

The Koh-i-nur — Robert Montgomery — Story of a Christmas Box — 
Gulab Singh and the Lawrence Asylums. 

The simplicity of the brothers in affairs, which by many 
would be considered of the highest importance, is clearly 
illustrated by Mr. Bosworth Smith's story of their adven- 
ture with the Koh-i-nur, Among the state jewels of the 
Sikh court was this famous " Mountain of Light," which, 
after passing from the Mogul to the Persian, and thence to 
the Afghan from whom it was wrested by Ran jit Singh, was 
now to be presented to Queen Victoria. The diamond was 
placed in the charge of Sir Henry, who, deeming his brother 
the stronger and more practical guardian, entrusted it to 
John, who pocketed the little box and straightway forgot it. 

Some weeks later came an official letter from Lord Dal- 
housie ordering that the diamond be sent at once to her 
Majesty. The President received the message during a 
meeting of the Board, and John advised him to send it 
off promptly. 

" Why, you've got it," said the senior member. 

John's clear intellect took in the full horror of the situa- 
tion, and he feared he was a ruined man, for the gem had 
never been seen by him since the day it had been given 
into his keeping. 

Crimes without number had been committed for jewels 
not a quarter its value, and who would believe his story — 

173 M 



1 74 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

that he had forgotten its existence and flung it aside in the 
pocket of an old waistcoat? The Koh-i-nur was enough 
to tempt any man — to madden, to intoxicate, even the 
most upright. Of what avail then to rely upon his known 
integrity? His story might be officially believed, but he 
knew that men would shake their heads and regard him 
askance. 

Yet without a sign of perturbation he casually replied: 
" Oh yes, of course, I forgot all about it," and calmly pro- 
ceeded to discuss the business before the meeting with all 
his usual alertness and without sign of preoccupation. 
But we can guess how he longed for the end — how he 
hurried in search of his servant, who chanced to remember 
taking a small box from his master's discarded clothes. 
He explained where he had put the worthless box containing 
the bit of glass, and the Koh-i-nur was safe. 

In November 1850 Mr. Mansel had been appointed 
Resident of Nagpur, and the vacant place at the Board had 
been filled by Mr. Robert Montgomery, Commissioner of 
Lahore, a Derry schoolfellow of the Lawrences. On 
Christmas Day 1851 Sir Henry and Lady Lawrence 
entertained their colleagues to dinner. 

" I wonder," exclaimed the President abruptly, " what 
the two poor old Simpsons are doing at this moment, and 
whether they have had any better dinner than usual 
to-day?" 

Naturally enough, the coincidence had caused their 
thoughts to revert to the days at Foyle College where " the 
two poor old Simpsons " had been ushers. 

" I'll teU you what we'll do," Sir Henry proposed. " The 
Simpsons must be very old, and, I should think, nearly 
blind ; they cannot be well off ; let us each put down fifty 
pounds and send it to them to-morrow as ' a Christmas-box 
from a far-off land, with the good wishes of three of their 
old pupils, now members of the Punjab Board of Admini- 



The Derry Schoolfellows 175 

stration at Lahore.' " The others readily agreed, and Sir 
George Lawrence, who had lately become Political Agent 
at Meywar, also sent on his contribution. 

The reply, " almost illegible from the writer's tears," has 
unhappily been lost, but Mr. Bosworth Smith has been 
able to record ^ "its general drift and its most salient 
points. It began : ' My dear kind boys ; ' but the pen of 
the old man had afterwards been drawn through the word 
' boys ' and there had been substituted for it the word 
' friends.' It went on to thank the donors for their most 
generous gift, which would go far to keep them from want 
during the short time that might be left to them ; but, far 
above the actual value of the present, was the preciousness 
of the thought that they had not been forgotten by their 
old pupils, in what seemed to be the very high position to 
which they had risen. He did not know what the ' Board 
of Administration ' meant, but he felt sure it was some- 
thing very important; and he added with childlike sim- 
plicity, that he had looked out the Punjab in ' the old 
school atlas ' which they had so often used together, but he 
could not find either it or Lahore. ... It only remains 
to be added that the writer of the letter, old as he was, lived 
on till he saw one of his three pupils in the flesh once more ; 
and that, when the citizens of Londonderry were giving a 
banquet to Sir Robert Montgomery, who had just then 
returned from India, with the honours of the Mutiny thick 
upon him, the half-blind old schoolmaster managed, with 
the help of a ticket that had been given him, to be present 
also . . . and it may safely be asserted that, by this time, 
he hardly needed to look into ' the old school atlas ' to find 
where the Punjab lay; for it was from the Punjab that 
India had been saved, and it was to his three old pupils 
and benefactors, Henry Lawrence, John Lawrence, and 
Robert Montgomery, that its salvation was admitted to be 
* Bosworth Smith, voh i. pp. 321-323. 



1 76 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

chiefly due." Well founded was the sister's boast that 
Henry " never lost sight of any one in whom he had taken 
the slightest interest." 

The cares of his high office had not caused Sir Henry's 
interest in philanthropic work to wane. His zeal for the 
salvation of the white children in India was as ardent as 
ever, and while President of the Punjab Board he was 
placed in a peculiarly embarrassing situation by the offer 
of donations from natives of rank towards the up-keep of 
his asylum. Much good might be done with the money, 
and he hoped that the offers had been prompted by good- 
feeling towards himself, and were expressions of a desire on 
the part of the donors to identify themselves with the 
interests of the dominant race, now that the sense of 
humiliation had become less poignant. He was naturally 
reluctant to risk a conversion of would-be friends into 
decided foes by appearing to snub any such manifestation 
of good-feeling, and, inclined to accept, he asked the 
Governor-General's approval. The reply was unfavour- 
able, and the danger of misunderstanding, pointed out by 
Lord Dalhousie, must be admitted. 

Paying a sincere tribute to his lieutenant's " integrity 
and honour," which " would prevent your ever taking a 
gift for the Asylum under circumstances which would inter- 
fere with your public duty," he urged that the acceptance 
of the offers could, and would, be easily misinterpreted; 
that the inevitable caviller would be sure to aver that the 
donors were purchasing the favour of their unsuspicious 
ruler. " I do not beheve," the letter went on to say, " that 
any one of the chiefs contributes to such an institution as 
the Asylum, from which they and theirs derive no direct 
benefit, except from a desire to please you, and to gain 
favour with the local or Supreme Government. I think 
your detractors will very probably try to represent that 
you are using your official position virtually to obtain sup- 



The Derry Schoolfellows 177 

port for an object in which you take a strong personal 
interest from persons who are under your authority. . . ." ^ 

Having suffered many rebukes at the hands of his chief, 
Sir Henry probably classed this letter as an additional 
rebuff, perhaps less objectionable in tone. But Lord 
Dalhousie was the wiser of the two in his conclusions, 
and there is no reason to imagine any motive beyond a 
desire to shield his " touchy " subordinate from the possibly 
unpleasant consequences of his own impulsiveness. That 
he was not wholly right with regard to facts was proved 
in the following year, when Gulab Singh gave a big donation 
to the asylum after Sir Henry's removal to Rajputana, 
whence his influence could no longer be of use to the 
Maharaja of Kashmir. Though the gift was made " from 
a desire to please " his benefactor, it could not have been 
in order " to gain favour." 

The extracts hitherto given from the correspondence 
between the Governor-General and the President of the 
Punjab Board have been indicative of strained relations. 
This is perhaps necessary in order to lead up to the sever- 
ance of Sir Henry Lawrence's connection with the province 
with which his name will always be coupled. Not all the 
letters that passed between them, however, were after 
this fashion, for Lord Dalhousie had a high regard for this 
lieutenant whom he considered impracticable. He could 
even be playful with him on occasion. 

In the early days of 1852 Lord Stanley (the late Earl of 
Derby), who was qualifying for his future position by a 
personal acquaintance with Eastern problems, begged 
Sir Henry's permission to accompany him on one of his 
tours along the Afghan border. Lord Dalhousie feared 
lest the Afridis and the wild tribesmen of the Derajat 
should take the opportunity to pay off old scores. He 
wrote to warn Sir Henry : 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 169. 



1/8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

"... If any ill-starred accident should happen, it 
will make a good deal of difference whether it happens to 
Lord Stanley and Sir Henry Lawrence, or to John Tomkins 
and Bill Higgins . . . and, altogether, I don't like it. 
One can't prohibit a man going where he wishes to go in 
British territory; but I wish you would put him off it, 
if you possibly can." ^ 

But under the aegis of Henry Lawrence the traveller 
was safe. 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 165-166. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

(1849-1853) 

INCOMPATIBLE IDEALS 

Controversy with Sir Charles Napier — The Shadow of the Mutiny — 
The Jaghirdars — Irreconcilable Differences of Opinion between 
the Brothers — Both offer to Resign — Lord Dalhousie accepts 
Henry's Resignation — He leaves the Punjab — Grief of the 
Natives. 

The years during which the Punjab was administered by 
the Council of Three were marked by important con- 
troversies. That between its President and Lord Dalhousie 
has already been touched upon; Sir Charles Napier's 
attacks upon the Board, and the painful, but honourable, 
disputes between the brothers, must be taken in their 
turn. 

The fighting general — conqueror of Sind and would- 
have-been conqueror of the Punjab had not Gujerat fore- 
stalled him — was one of the first soldiers of the age. He 
was the hero of all ranks in the army, and deservedly so ; 
and though his writings and sayings — racy and candid to 
a fault — may provoke blended amusement and protest, 
it is not easy to regard their author without affection, or 
at least without an inclination to "be to his faults a little 
blind." To judge Sir Charles Napier by his own writings 
or by his brother's violent partiality would be unfair. 
His services in the field were great; he governed Sind 
with justice and benevolence; and it should ever be 
remembered in his favour how his wise humanity saved 
more than one large town of the North of England from 

179 



i8o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

civil war during the Chartist agitation, when, as general 
in command of the Northern District, he resisted the 
demands and ignored the threats of the magistrates and 
employers of labour, who were urging him to disperse mobs 
with the bullet and the bayonet; and he dared to show 
sympathy with the toilers. He invited the Chartist 
leaders to confer with him, and, by holding an artillery 
display for their benefit, he demonstrated the hopelessness 
of their cause should they appeal to force. They were 
convinced that he held them in the hollow of his hand — 
convinced also that for all his sympathy Napier would 
do his duty as a soldier if a fight should be forced upon 
him. But the Lawrences did not know this side of the 
great soldier's character. Sir Henry's opinion of the 
Commander-in-Chief was prejudiced from the first by his 
sympathy with Outram in the Sind quarrel, but in later 
life he acknowledged that he had judged Napier too 
harshly. 

Though nearly seventy when sent out to supersede 
Lord Gough, Sir Charles was as energetic as any subaltern 
and as impatient of restraint. We know that men whose 
one conspicuous talent has been allowed by their fellows 
are wont sadly to reflect that the world is slow to recognise 
their possession of some other gift, upon which, having 
it not, they set a greater value. The humorous writer, 
to whom the public has been kind, regrets that he should 
be esteemed so highly on that account, and that he alone 
should be aware of the great superiority of his more serious 
work ; and the actor who has attained success in comedy 
may cherish a grudge against the public taste that will 
have none of his tragedy. 

So the new Commander-in-Chief, not satisfied with the 
recognition of his ever-victorious generalship, firmly 
believed himself a heaven-born statesman. Too late 
then to subdue the Khalsa, he made no attempt to conceal 



Incompatible Ideals i8i 



his desire to govern the Sikh people — as an autocrat, not 
as a member of a board. Sir Charles Napier was no 
mountebank posturing to dazzle the world, but, confident 
in his own ability, he loved to overcome obstacles and was 
not content to stand aside and watch another confront 
the giant. Incidentally he seems to have entertained some 
vague hope that the youthful viceroy might be induced 
to depute to him the conduct of all Indian affairs, military 
and civil. 

He was quickly disillusioned. He had been sent to 
India by the voice of the nation, against the wishes of the 
Company's directors. We are told by his biographer ^ 
that on his first meeting with the Governor-General the 
latter straightway declared war. " I have been warned. 
Sir Charles Napier," said he, " not to let you encroach 
upon my authority, but I will take damned good care you 
shall not." And his contempt for Lord Dalhousie became 
greater than for the Lawrences. This story is, however, 
hardly consistent with Lord Dalhousie's account of his 
first impressions of Napier as recorded in his diary. ^ He 
liked Napier, " never had a more agreeable inmate of my 
house," and believed they would " work cordially together," 
though the prominence given to " Politicals " in the 
Punjab " is enough, in Sir Charles's eyes, to damn Utopia." 

" Boards rarely have any talent," said Napier, and he 
worked to the end that a military government should be 
established in the Punjab on the lines which, as he stoutly 
maintained, had done so well in Sind. Certainly Napier's 
administration of the Beluchi possession had been a work 
of genius, but the idea of converting their Punjab into 
another Sind roused the Lawrences to meet the attack in 
characteristic fashion. Henry rushed forth from his tent 

1 Life of Sir Charles James Napier, vol. iv. p. 195. 

^ Lee Warner's Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, vol. i. p. 310. 



1 82 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

to do battle with the challenger; John wrote a Minute, 
smiled impassively, and went on with his work. 

" I would rather be governor of the Punjab than Com- 
mander-in-Chief," Sir Charles wrote to his brother, and 
explained why so desirable an arrangement was impossible. 
" Had I been here for Lord Dalhousie to put at the head of 
the Punjab I believe he could not have done it ; my suspicion 
is that he was ordered to put Lawrence there." ^ Though 
he drew the bow at a venture his " suspicion " was not very 
wide of the mark. When Sir Henry Lawrence went home in 
1847 it was understood that the chief post in the Punjab 
was to be kept open for him. Had Lord Dalhousie been 
quite free to choose his own lieutenant, in all probability 
there would have been no Board of Administration. 

Napier assured the Governor-General that " no one can 
entertain a higher opinion than I do of the zeal, energy, 
courage, and, in some cases, of the abilities " of the members 
of the Board, " but the system placed them in a wrong 
position, and their personal good qualities only tended to 
increase difficulties and embarrass the Commander-in- 
Chief." 2 

He admitted that Henry Lawrence was " a good fellow," 
though he " doubted his capacity " ; he was inclined to 
think John clever, " but a man may have good sense and 
yet not be fit to rule a large country." After a visit to 
Peshawar during the Afridi troubles his opinion of one 
member of the Lawrence family seems to have improved. 
" Colonel [George] Lawrence is a right good soldier and a 
right good fellow, and my opinion of him is high; but he 
tried the advising scheme a little with me at Kohat." ^ 

This last sentence gives the keynote of Napier's character. 

He wrote a treatise on " Indian Mis-government " in 
which he proved to his own satisfaction that India was 

1 Life of Sir Charles James Napier, vol. iv. p. i68. 

^ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 177. ^ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 281. 



Incompatible Ideals ^^3 

going to the dogs and — particularly in the Punjab — was 
governed by incompetents. His criticisms were always 
fearless, generally honest, and occasionally justified. The 
remedies he proposed lost much of their claim to considera- 
tion through the picturesqueness of his language. John 
replied officially for the Board, and Henry carried the war 
into the enemy's country by the medium of the Calcutta 
Review. 

The matter of the Punjab Frontier Force wrung the 
withers of the Commander-in-Chief, who, not unnaturally, 
considered that all the troops, irregulars as well as regulars, 
should be under his control. Sir Henry Lawrence, who 
had raised the efficient little army that was to behave so well 
in 1857, ^^^ contribute so greatly to the crushing of the 
Mutiny, thought otherwise. He urged that his irregulars 
should rather be considered as military police to keep the 
peace of the border and be responsible to the Board. 
John Lawrence stated his opinion that the Board had 
already too much work, and that he should prefer the 
transfer of the Frontier Force to Sir Charles Napier. At 
the same time he expressed his conviction that his brother 
would make a better use of the troops, and that, should 
Lord Dalhousie decide to retain them under the Board, the 
complete control should be given to Sir Henry personally. 

The Governor-General did so decide, and Sir Henry soon 
had his pick of the Company's officers to command his 
regiments, so great had become the prestige of the Punjab. 
Napier did not regard his opponents with any increase of 
approval after this rebuff, and whether by chance or by 
skill in his search for the weak points in the Lawrence and 
Dalhousie armour, he made his reputation as one who was 
also among the prophets. The controversy is important in 
that it affects Sir Henry's right to be considered as the seer 
of the Mutiny. It is certain that both he and Napier did 
utter words of warning, and that both made suggestions 



1 84 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

which were ignored. But Napier holds the advantage, for 
he left India convinced that the Oudh regiments would 
prove untrustworthy in time of temptation, whereas Law- 
rence pooh-poohed his warnings as contradictory and 
extravagant — as they certainly were. 

Napier's opinions lost in weight by the violence of his 
language, his evident desire to discredit the Government of 
India, and the meddlesome omniscience that impelled him 
to criticise unfavourably every step taken without his 
approval. Sir Henry's vision was less clear than usual 
because his pride would not permit him to agree with the 
conqueror of Sind. The very fact of Napier's advocacy 
would render any theory unsound in his eyes ; and all acts 
and words of a Lawrence were of necessity misguided and 
weak to Napier. Probably neither would have taken quite 
the line he did take had his opponent been any other man. 
Had they been friends, willing to combine in advocating 
the reform of the Indian army — a work in which they 
would have had Lord Dalhousie's support — the Mutiny 
might not have shaken the British Raj to its foundations. 
But both were hindered by prejudice and both were in 
the wrong. 

During Napier's short tenancy of the chief command in 
India, the 66th Bengal Infantry showed a mutinous spirit. 
He disbanded the regiment and gave its colours and designa- 
tion to the Nasiri Gurkha Battalion, a corps of irregulars 
who were glad enough to become enrolled in the regular 
army with higher pay. He justified his high-handed action 
by tracing the mutinous spirit to ' ' the dangerous influence 
which the Brahman supremacy had assumed," and the 
lesson of the Mutiny proved him right. 

The honourable career and the pension offered by the 
Company were appreciated by Brahmans and Mohammedans 
alike, and the poorbeahs certainly regarded their services as 
indispensable. Brahman priests had said, in effect : "If 



Incompatible Ideals 185 

we choose to forbid Hindus to enlist what would become 
of John Company then ? India could not be held." There- 
fore, said Sir Charles Napier in the grandiloquent language 
he frequently affected : " All was on the balance when I 
flung the Goorkha battalion into the scale, as Brennus did 
his sword, and mutiny, having no Camillus, was crushed." ^ 
And again : "... with the Goorkha race we can so 
reinforce our Indian army that our actual force in India 
would be greater than that of the Sepoy army, numerous 
as it is," 2 

In the Calcutta Review Sir Henry Lawrence controverted 
these assertions, and stated, from his personal knowledge 
of Nepal, that Gurkhas were less useful and much less 
numerous than Napier seemed to imagine, and that his 
notions were absurd. 

Both were right and both wrong. Napier saw the danger 
and proposed a remedy, which, modified and adapted, would 
have done much to obviate it, for the Gurkhas in 1857 
proved that Napier's estimate of their value and fidelity 
was not exaggerated, and England would have been glad 
if the four battalions had been eight. When the army 
was re-organised after the Mutiny Lawrence was found to 
have been right in combating Napier's theory that Gurkhas 
could take the place of Punjabi and Hindustani sepoys. 
The supply was too limited, the men are too small and short 
of leg for the cavalry or artillery, and they stand the heat 
of the plains no better than the white man. 

The Punjab Board breathed more freely when the im- 
petuous soldier resigned and departed from India's shores 
with " the piece of soap and two towels " which were 
popularly understood to compose his full campaigning kit. 
Happily for " the Punjab which they are governing so 

^ Life of Sir Charles James Napier, vol. iv. p. 263. 
^ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 248. 



1 86 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

badly," Lord Dalhousie was as completely out of sympathy 
with his chief soldier as were the Lawrences. 



In their antagonism to Napier's revolutionary schemes 
the brothers were united ; in the measures adopted for the 
moral and material welfare of their province they were not 
divided ; but with regard to the treatment of a certain class 
they were steadfastly opposed. For a time there was hope 
that a working compromise might be found. The hope 
was vain; their views diverged more and more, and the 
situation became intolerable to the two great-hearted men 
who would willingly have died for one another. 

One of the minor points at issue concerned the payment 
of the land-tax. John had abolished the old system of 
payment in kind, which opened the way to many abuses. 
The cash-payment was approved by the husbandmen untO, 
in an unusually good season, the crops were too heavy to 
be easily disposed of, and permission to pay in kind was 
requested by the farmers. Sir Henry was moved by their 
pleading and did not see why exceptions might not be made. 
John would not give way; he appreciated the importance 
of the principle. 

They were also at variance on the question of the extent 
and number of public works to which they should commit 
themselves. Henry Lawrence's mind was intensely con- 
servative and progressive. He wished to push onward 
regardless of cost, and his more cautious brother was 
compelled to check his ardour. 

Henry's ideal was an India moving forward on her own 
lines of progress. He desired that the alien officials should 
inculcate English honour and justice and honesty, regard 
for truth and love of duty, embodying those ideals in the 
forms of government, and adapting those forms to Eastern 
modes of thought — to supply the cloth and allow her to cut 



Incompatible Ideals 187 

it to her own fashion.^ John Lawrence and Lord Dal- 
housie deemed success more probable if they could bring 
Mahomet to the mountain, and they hoped to adapt the 
natives of India to the civilisation of the West. 

But they differed most on the subject of the treatment 
of the jaghirdars of the Punjab, a question that affected 
to a greater or lesser degree almost every point of policy 
with which they had to deal. When the Norman Conqueror 
had vanquished the Saxons he made grants of land to his 
nobles ; so Ran jit Singh, as his dominion grew, gave to his 
favourite soldiers a jaghir, or lien upon the revenue of some 
district. The jaghirdar, or holder of a jaghir, was not a 
landholder, as by Eastern custom the land must always 
belong to the Crown; but he collected the land-tax and, 
sometimes remitting a fixed sum to his sovereign, he had 
power to squeeze the cultivator to any extent. In return 
he could be called upon to render military service to his 
chief. 

This method of revenue assignment, with its inevitable 
abuses, could not be tolerated by the new Government. 
Then what was to become of the jaghirdars? In effect 
this was John Lawrence's solution. The jaghirdars are a 
bad lot;' for generations they have robbed the peasants, 
and now is their turn to suffer. The people will gain by 
the extinction of jaghirs, which were given on condition of 
military or religious service. " We want neither their 
soldiers nor their prayers." 

Sir Henry, granting that the jaghirdars, as a whole, 
were not particularly lovable, pointed out that the fault 
lay with the custom and tradition of the country. The 
sirdars and jaghirdars were powerful once; now they are 

1 " Henry loved all men great and small, was loved by them in 
return, did not believe that Indian institutions were wholly bad or 
English wholly good. . . . John had no belief in Indian but perfect 
faith in English methods of rule." — Thorburn, The Punjab in 
Peace and War, p. 89. 



1 88 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

" down " ; let the fall be gradual, so that they be not 
humiliated too greatly. By all means improve the 
condition of the peasantry, but let the treasury suffer and 
the coffers of the Punjab be empty rather than raise up on 
every side powerful enemies of the British Raj, ready to 
take the first opportunity to strike at the uprooters of 
their honour. 

John would argue, with much truth, that his brother 
did not appreciate the full significance of empty coffers. 
Here were they constructing hundreds of miles of canals 
and thousands of miles of roadway, building bridges, and 
tanks, dispensaries and schools, maintaining a large 
frontier force, and an efficient staff in every district to 
administer justice and to right wrongs, and all this was 
expensive. Empty the coffers and public works must be 
stopped. The land-tax had been lightly assessed, and 
though this would pay in the end, if the jaghirdars were 
also to be satisfied there would certainly be no funds 
wherewith to carry out the reforms which were as dear 
to his brother as to himself. And he intimated that he 
did not care a brass farthing for the enmity of either 
sirdars or jaghirdars. They could do little harm while 
the mass of the people were satisfied with the new regime. 

The soldier-brother understood the Oriental well enough 
to dread lest any humiliation of the aristocracy should 
inflame the minds even of the peasants they had formerly 
oppressed. Extortion by the jaghirdar they were used 
to ; it was the way and the right of him to whom Fate had 
given the power, and, had they been in his place, they 
would have done as he did. But the ways of the sahib 
they did not understand. Individually many of the 
sahibs were good men whom they could trust ; the Larens 
Sahibs were all three their true friends; so were, in their 
several districts, Abbott, and Edwardes, and — with bated 
breath — so was Nikalsain Sahib. But in the mass the 



Incompatible Ideals 189 

Englishmen were incomprehensible and very foolish, 
though skilful in the management of war. 

Henry Lawrence did not for a moment advocate the 
retention of the native aristocracy in their present relation 
to the people. Nor did John propose to strip them naked. 
The former was prepared to allow the chiefs to retain a 
certain degree of dignity and rank, and held that justice 
and mercy demanded that they should be spared unneces- 
sary humiliation, and that policy likewise sanctioned 
generous treatment, as the nobles would the more readily 
acquiesce in, and adapt themselves to, the new conditions. 

John Lawrence was willing to be generous, but he pro- 
tested that Henry's generosity was extravagance which 
the state finances could not support — and here he was 
unanswerable. Also, that his brother overestimated 
the sirdars' power for good or evil — and here he was 
mistaken. When the Mutiny came to test all theories, the 
nobles, for whom Henry had not pleaded in vain, either 
remained neutral or gave active and invaluable support 
to John Lawrence when the clouds were blackest. Where- 
ever the chief men had been treated with consideration 
there was loyalty. The breach was to become wider and 
deeper and each began sadly to realise that his well- 
loved brother's work had ceased to be a complement of his 
own; that indeed, by the opposition of their ideals — or 
rather of the means by which the common ideal should be 
attained — the self-sacrificing efforts of both were being 
made of little avail. These were the unhappy days when 
they could no longer feel the joy in well-doing that had 
hitherto made work a delight. 

In the main the elder brother was impracticable, and, 
had he been supreme, the Punjab would have been bank- 
rupt. On the other hand, without his sympathetic influence 
John Lawrence and Lord Dalhousie would have raised 



1 90 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

up powerful factions against the dominant race. Acting 
together, neither was able to proceed to extremes and a 
forced compromise produced the model province. 

The effect of this compromise, stated with succinct 
comprehensiveness by Sir John Lawrence's friend and 
secretary, the late Sir Richard Temple, has been quoted 
by Mr. Merivale from the papers of Sir Herbert Edwardes.^ 

" Temple, talking with me to-day about Henry and 
John Lawrence, made some fair remarks as to the general 
characteristics of Henry as a civil administrator : ' Sir 
Henry's policy was this : — 

" ' The revenue : to have very light settlements. In 
judicial matters : to do as much justice as possible under 
trees in the open air before the people. In jails : to take 
immense pains with the prisoners, considering that we were 
responsible for their lives and health and morals, if we put 
them into durance. In material improvements: to go 
ahead at a tremendous pace and cover the country with 
the means of communication — roads, bridges, etc. In 
policy: to be very conciliatory to the chiefs of our own 
territory, very friendly and non-interfering with neighbour- 
ing courts.' He remarked generally that it was best for 
the State that the two brothers were associated together, 
though it proved so unhappy for themselves. Neither 
was perfect : each had lessons to learn. Sir Henry would 
soon have had to close the Treasury, with his ideas of 
jagheer improvements, light revenue, etc., and John would 
have had a full revenue but a mutinous country. Both 
were so naturally truthful and candid that when they had 
done the mischief they would have owned it and retraced 
their steps. But by both being together the mischief was 
prevented. One checked the other. At the same time 
they confirmed each other's faults. Sir Henry was more 
lavish in his proposals, because he thought that John 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 188-189. 



Incompatible Ideals 191 

would cut down any proposal which he made; and John 
was more hard and stingy, upon parallel reasoning. We 
both agreed that John had begun to adopt Sir Henry's 
views in many things from the very moment that Sir 
Henry left the Punjaub, and that the crisis of 1857 had very 
much more softened and modified John's former principles." 
But however beneficial to the state, such a position could 
not but be extremely painful to the brothers, who found 
themselves in conscience bound to oppose one another's 
views. Without exception, when a jaghir case, upon which 
they could not agree, was submitted to Lord Dalhousie, 
he decided in favour of John ; and Henry chafed the more 
that the jaghirdars, knowing he was their friend, should 
be able to shake their heads and tell one another that the 
once-powerful Henry Lawrence had no longer any in- 
fluence over the Lord Sahib. Had there been no expression 
of irritation they would have been more than human, 
and Mr. Montgomery humorously complained that his 
position was that of " a regular buffer between two high- 
pressure engines." In the altercation that arose the 
President occasionally showed himself irritable and 
querulous, and unwilling to admit the other point of view. 
The character of Sir Henry Lawrence was so lofty that 
any attempt to claim for him exemption from human 
weakness could only tend to belittle him. His temper 
was naturally hasty, and his temperament too sensitive; 
he was at this time ill in body and mind, and Dalhousie's 
policy of annexation being obnoxious, the work was less 
congenial to him than to his brother. That the dis- 
sensions should be hidden from the public gaze was the 
aim of both. To present a united front was, in the first 
place, politic, and the strife was sufficiently disagreeable 
to men of their character without the odious reflection 
that their wrangles were being publicly discussed and 
exaggerated. From Montgomery they could not be 



192 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

concealed, and, as their colleague possessed the esteem 
and affection of both — and of all who knew him — each 
brother attempted to bring the other to reason by con- 
vincing the third member of the Board of the justice of his 
own views and by asking his intervention. 

The President complained that his brother paid too little 
regard to his opinion, sometimes indeed acting in opposi- 
tion for no apparent reason; to which John replied that 
he had frequently given way against his better judgment, 
and found concession vain; that his brother's ill-health 
and consequent absence from Lahore had thrown the 
bulk of the work upon his shoulders ; and he, in his turn, 
complained that, on occasion, after he had closely studied 
all the bearings of some problem, and had, after much 
thought and consultation, formed his opinion and his plans, 
the absent President, judging on general principles and 
with only a superficial knowledge of the specific case, 
would oppose and delay. 

Montgomery could do no more than offer good advice. 
" Hereafter," said he, " when the daily strife of conflicting 
opinions is at an end, when we shall all have run our 
courses, how wretched will appear all the bickerings and 
heart-burnings that occupied so much of our time. Let 
us all while we are spared, do our best, and be able to 
say from our hearts at the end, that we are unprofitable 
servants." ^ 

And though this appeal did not bring the strife to an 
end, who can say that it failed to sink into the hearts of 
both and incline them to a greater degree of forbearance ? 
That each did feel sympathy with the other's obvious 
grief was abundantly shown in their letters of this period; 
and Henry Lawrence strove to copy his Divine Master 
more closely, and prayed for help to overcome those faults 
which, he knew, beset him. 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 188. 



Incompatible Ideals 193 

" O Lord, give me grace and strength to do Thy will, 
to begin the day and end it with prayer and searching of 
my own heart, with reading of Thy word. Make me to 
understand it, to understand Thee, to bring home to my 
heart . . . my entire need of a Saviour, of my utter 
inability to do aught that is right in my own strength: 
make me humble, reasonable, contented, thankful, just, 
and considerate. Restrain my tongue and my thoughts ; 
may I act as if ever in Thy sight, as if I may die this day. 
May I not fear man or man's opinions, but remember that 
Thou knowest my motives and my thoughts, and that 
Thou wilt be my judge. It is not in me to be regular: 
let me be so as much as I can. Let me do to-day's work 
to-day, not postponing, clear up and finish daily. So 
living in humility, thankfulness, contentment." ^ 

John Lawrence had foreseen that the sharing of power 
and responsibility equally by two conscientious men of 
convictions fundamentally opposed would lead to a 
situation the more intolerable in that they loved one 
another. Before they had sat together at the Board for 
twelve months he had placed the difficulty before Lord 
Dalhousie, and had asked to be transferred elsewhere, 
recognising his brother's superior claim to the Punjab. 
A few extracts from the letter ^ will speak for themselves. 
After stating that he would have preferred to remain in the 
Jalandar had his own wishes been consulted, he expressed 
his opinion that : 

" If I know myself, I believe I should be happier and 
equally useful to the State if I thought and acted on my 
own bottom. I am not well fitted by nature to be one of a 
triumvirate. Right or wrong, I am in the habit of quickly 
making up my mind on most subjects, and feel little 
hesitation in undertaking the responsibility of carrying 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 218. 
- Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 331-332. 



194 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

out my views. The views of my brother, a man far abler 
than I am, are, in many respects, opposed to mine. I can 
no more expect that, on organic changes, he will give way 
to me, than I can to him. He is my senior in age, and we 
have always been staunch friends. It pains me to be in 
a state of antagonism towards him. A better or more 
honourable man I don't know, or one more anxious to 
discharge his duty conscientiously; but, in matters of 
civil polity of the first importance, we differ greatly. . . . 
I feel myself now in a false position, and would be glad to 
extricate myself, if I can do it with honour. ... I will 
simply add that, if it is necessary that I stay at Lahore, 
I will do so with cheerfulness, and fulfil my duties as long 
as health and strength may last." 

But the Governor-General had no idea of permitting 
John Lawrence to leave the province. The brothers 
would doubtless find their duties disagreeable, but their 
sacrifice would be the making of the Punjab. 

" In unsullied honesty and intrepid manliness," said 
Sir John Kaye, " the two Lawrences were the counter- 
parts of each other. Both were equally without a stain." ^ 
For nearly four years each tried to bring his brother to 
reason, and by the end of that time they were farther apart 
than ever. Had they held conflicting opinions on matters 
affecting themselves solely, and calling for personal 
sacrifice, how ready would each have been to give way! 
But the more they discussed the jaghirdar question, the 
more pronounced became Henry's scorn for filthy lucre 
and the worse opinion had John of the good-for-nothing 
gentry. In December 1852, when the success of the 
Punjab administration was assured, the Hyderabad 
Residency fell vacant, and both offered to resign their 
places on the Board and apply for the post. 

This time Lord Dalhousie did not hesitate. He believed 
1 The Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 52. 



Incompatible Ideals 195 

that Sir Henry's work in the Punjab was done, that the 
special conditions which had made his personal influence 
and ikbal a necessity had passed away, that the Board 
might safely be abolished ^ and the province governed by 
one man, with the power of a Lieutenant-Governor and 
the new title of Chief Commissioner. And there was one 
man in India in whom he had implicit trust, and that man 
was John Lawrence. Two years before this opportunity 
was given him to get rid of Sir Henry, Lord Dalhousie had 
written to the President of the Board of Control i^ "I 
shall not be sorry when he goes, because although he has 
many fine qualities, I think his brother John, take him all 
in all, is a better man, fitted in every way for that place." 

He therefore wrote to inform Sir Henry that Hyderabad 
had already been disposed of — to Colonel Low, a " soldier- 
civilian," whose attitude towards native states and princes 
resembled that of Sir Henry himself. It is interesting 
to note that the soldier administrators — Low, Sleeman, 
Edwardes, Nicholson, Abbott, Becher, Reynell Taylor, 
Lake, Robert Napier, George and Henry Lawrence — 
seemed able to enter more fully into the modes of thought 
and understand better the prejudices of the natives than 
could the civilians. The Governor-General now proposed 
to appoint Sir Henry to Rajputana, the Residency vacated 
by Colonel Low. 

He proceeded to offer an explanation of the reasons that 
led him to decide that the younger brother should remain 
in the Punjab. 

I Within a few weeks of the appointment of the Punjab Board 
Lord Dalhousie wrote to the President of the Board of Control: 
" If Sir Henry Lawrence had in my judgment been as indisputably 
fit to administer alone the civil government as he was to direct the 
political and military arrangements of the Punjab, I never would 
have thrown the local government into the form of a Board." — 
Lee Warner, vol. i. p. 253. 

* Lee Warner, vol. i. p. 254. 



196 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

^ " It has for some time been the recorded opinion of the 
Supreme Government that, whenever an opportunity 
occurred for effecting a change, the administration of the 
Punjaub would best be conducted by a Chief Commissioner, 
having a Judicial and a Revenue Commissioner under him. 
But it was also the opinion of the Government that, when- 
ever the change should be made, the Chief Commissioner 
ought to be an officer of the Civil Service. 

" You stand far too high, and have received too many 
assurances and too many proofs of the great estimation in 
which your ability, qualities, and services have been held 
by the successive Governments under which you have been 
employed, to render it necessary that I should bear testi- 
mony here to the value which has been set upon your 
labours and upon your service as the head of the Adminis- 
tration of the Punjaub by the Government over which I 
have had the honour to preside. We do not regard it as 
in any degree disparaging to you that we, nevertheless, do 
not consider it expedient to commit the sole executive 
charge of the administration of a kingdom to any other than 
to a thoroughly trained and experienced civil officer. . . . 
I presume your offer had no especial reference to Hydera- 
bad. Rajpootana in your hands will have the same salary 
as Hyderabad, and a political jurisdiction such, I believe, 
as accords with your inclinations. The Agent marches all 
the cold weather, and in the hot weather is privileged to 
retire to Mount Aboo. These are considerations which 
render the appointment agreeable as well as important, 
though I do not for a moment pretend to compare its im- 
portance with the Punjaub. ... I hope you will be satis- 
fied by it that the Government has evinced every desire to 
treat you with the highest consideration. Although it is 
not to be expected that you can concur in the view the 
Government has taken regarding the Chief-Commissioner- 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 191-194. 



Incompatible Ideals 1 97 

ship, you will at least be convinced that neither I nor my 
colleagues had any desire of forcing our views into practical 
operation at the expense of your feelings, or to do anything 
which might discredit your public position. 

" Before closing this letter, I must take the liberty of 
adding what is due in justice to you, that in all our corre- 
spondence and conversations regarding your differences 
with John Lawrence, I have always found you acting 
towards him with frankness and generosity. 

" The subject of this letter is, of course, entirely confi- 
dential. I shall write to your brother to-day, and inform 
him that I have written to you, and nothing more will be 
said or done until I shall receive your reply." 

So prompt an acceptance of his offer to resign was a 
bitter pill for Sir Henry to swallow. Admitting that two 
men of such opposing tendencies could not work well har- 
nessed together, he could by no means acknowledge that if 
the Board should cease to exist he was not qualified to be 
supreme. The Punjab was his own particular country. 
He had been its head, real and nominal, ever since the 
Company had interfered in its internal affairs, and with all 
his humility and modesty he knew how predominating 
had been his influence in effecting the wonderful transition 
of " order out of chaos, law out of anarchy, peace out of 
war." " What the watchmaker is to the watch," said 
General Abbott in 1858,^ " that was Sir Henry Lawrence 
to the Punjaub. His assistants fashioned wheels, pivots, 
spring and balance; but it was his great mind which 
attributed to each his work, which laid down the dimensions 
of every circle, the power of every spring, the length of 
every lever, and which combined the whole into one of the 
greatest of triumphs of modern polity. His was the spirit 
which inspired every act of the local government, which 
touched the heart of all his subordinates with ardour to fill 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 1 54. 



198 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

up each his own part in a system so honourable to the 
British name. All caught from him the sacred fire; his 
presence seemed all-pervading, for the interests of the 
meanest were dear to him as those of the most powerful; 
and goodness and greatness were so natural wherever he 
came that other fruits seemed strange and impossible." 

Sir Henry replied, accepting the offer of Rajputana, and 
commented with some bitterness upon the implication that 
the " recorded opinion of the Supreme Government " was 
in effect that his presence at Lahore was " the only hin- 
drance to the adoption of an improved administration of 
the Punjaub. . . . For peace sake and the benefit of the 
public service, I was prepared to make way for J. L., and 
I have no wish to recall that offer. Our differences cer- 
tainly hindered work, and therefore, while the Board 
existed, it was better that one of us should be withdrawn. 
That when a single head should be appointed, I was deemed 
unfit to be that head, was a mortifying discovery, and I 
could not but write as feeling the disappointment, though 
I hope I expressed myself with due respect. However if I 
was before ready to vacate the post here, there are now 
stronger reasons to request my removal." ^ 

Though Sir Henry's wound never ceased to smart, there 
was no trace of bitterness in the subsequent relations of 
the brothers. The Governor-General's appointment re- 
quired confirmation by the directors, and Mr. Merivale has 
published the draft of a letter addressed by Sir Henry to 
the head of the Board of Control, with the object of ensuring 
the appointment to the post of him whom he knew to be 
the best fitted. 

" In many respects I look on my brother John as better 

adapted to this office than any other officer I know. My 

departure will cause considerable alarm in the Durbar ; but 

in the native opinion the change would be the less if my 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 194. 



Incompatible Ideals 199 

brother took my place, especially as he has already acted 
for me, and will now be here again for two months, and is 
known to be on the most brotherly terms with me. Per- 
haps it may be unseemly in me saying so much for my 
brother, but I do so on public grounds." 

The phrase in Lord Dalhousie's letter implying that he 
was not " a thoroughly trained and experienced civil 
officer " rankled in his mind, and in a long letter of justifi- 
cation to his friend Sir James Hogge, a director of the 
Company, he stated that : "I am quite ready to allow that 
my brother John is well qualified for the post he has got, 
but I do not know any other civilian in India who is. His 
special fitness, however, is not that he is a civilian, but that 
he would make a good soldier; and, with all deference to 
the Governor-General, I think he has gone twenty years 
too fast, and that already we have too many trained 
civilians and too much of the Regulations in the Punjaub ; 
that what is then wanted is the very simplest form of law, 
or rather of equity, and that the proper men to carry it out 
are such as Edwardes, Nicholson, Taylor, Lake, Becher, 
and civilians of the same stamp — men who will not spare 
themselves, who will mix freely with the people, and will 
do prompt justice, in their shirt-sleeves, rather than pro- 
found laws, to the discontent of all honest men, as is done 
in Bengal, and even in the pattern Government of Agra. 
The expression a trained civilian puzzles me; the fact 
being that I have done as much civil work as my brother and 
twice as much as many civilians who are considered trained 
men. I, too, have held every sort of civil post during the 
last twenty-one years, and have trained myself by hard 
work and by putting my own shoulder to the wheel." ^ 

Before leaving Lahore he addressed the following 
pathetic plea to his successor :— 

" As this is my last day at Lahore, I venture to offer you 
1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 200. 



200 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

a few words of advice, which I hope you will take in the 
spirit it is given in, and that you will believe that, if you 
preserve the peace of the country, and make the people 
high and low happy, I shall have no regrets that I vacated 
the field for you. It seems to me that you look on almost 
all questions affecting Jagheerdars and Mafeedars in a per- 
fectly different light from all others; in fact, that you 
consider them as nuisances and as enemies. If anything 
like this be your feeling, how can you expect to do them 
justice, as between man and man? I am sure if you will 
put it to yourself in this light, you will be more disposed to 
take up questions affecting them in a kindly spirit. I 
think we are doubly bound to treat them kindly, because 
they are down, and because they and their hangers-on have 
still some influence as affecting the public peace and con- 
tentment. I would simply do to them as I would be done 
by. I by no means say much in favour of most of their 
characters, I merely advocate their cases on the above 
grounds. I think also, if you will coolly consider the 
Jullunder Jagheer question, you will agree that the original 
conquerors there, and their old families, have been treated 
with unusual harshness, whole bodies of them have been 
recently petitioning me for the same terms as we have 
given here. Surely this is scarcely justice. You have now 
an excellent opportunity to redeem an error, and to obtain 
for yourself popularity. I simply referred parties to 
Macleod, because I believed you would be offended with any 
other step I might take. I beg you will allow Mac. to 
report on all the old cases, say, of those of possession of 
above fifty years, and that you will act on his and the dis- 
trict officer's recommendation. I wUl not trouble you on 
other subjects, on most of them you are more at home than 
I am ; I strongly recommend you to hold weekly Durbars 
^an hour or two thus spent will save much time, and 
cause much contentment. 



Incompatible Ideals 201 

" Wishing you health and all success, yours, affection- 
ately." 1 

John Lawrence was by nature more reticent than his 
brother, and his emotions were under better control — not 
starved nor crushed, but kept in subjection. He rarely 
cared to reveal his inmost thoughts, and the workings and 
yearnings of his heart were not obtruded; and herein lay 
one of the secrets of his power. His reply seems largely 
dictated by calm reason rather than by emotion, but, 
underlying the words, those who knew the man might 
read and divine how the appeal must have touched him. 

" My dear Henry, — I have received your kind note, and 
can only say in reply that I sincerely wish that you had 
been left in the Punjab to carry out your own views, and 
that I had got another berth. I must further say that 
where I have opposed your views I have done it from a 
thorough conviction, and not from factious or interested 
motives. I will give every man a fair hearing, and will 
endeavour to give every man his due. More than this no 
one should expect. ... It is more than probable that you 
and I will never again meet ; but I trust that all unkindly 
feeling between us may be forgotten."^ 

Here were no platitudes to grate upon the too-sensitive 
nerves of the loser in the strife, but who can doubt that, as 
he wrote, he formed that resolve to regard with greater 
sympathy the other point of view, and to give greater 
weight to his brother's opinions, which, happily for India, 
marked his subsequent career. 

The news flashed across the land of the Five Rivers and 

stupefaction succeeded to incredulity. Who could imagine 

the Punjab without its battered figure-head! And Sikhs 

in the darwazas of the Manjha ; ^ Jats and Mussulmans under 

' Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 195-196. 
'^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 338. 

* The Manjha is the home of the Sikhs — the country^around 
Lahore, the political capital, and Amritsar, the religious capital. 



20 2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the pipal trees in the villages of the plains ; Dogras in the 
valleys of the Eastern highlands; Afridis, Waziris, and 
Yusufzais along the wild Trans-Indus border ; and men of 
Hazara in the northern hills, all would discuss the change 
as they smoked when the day's work was done, and 
wonder what it might portend. And wherever it was 
possible for the British officials to foregather, there was 
one topic of conversation. With imaginations iired by the 
brilliant ability, courage, upright character, devotion to 
duty, quick grasp of the most intricate problems, and 
equally quick decision, of him who, no longer the " Laird 
of Cockpen," was now styled " the Great Pro-Consul," 
the rising men of the three presidencies were mostly 
disciples of the Dalhousie school. In the Punjab alone 
predominated the sympathisers with the views held by 
Sir Henry Lawrence — in influence certainly, and probably 
in numbers. 

Like their chief, to whom they gave their best work, 
the Dalhousie men were ambitious to see the line of red 
on the map of Asia pushed forward wherever, below the 
Himalayas, the Sulaimans, and the Hindu Kush, a fainter 
colour marked a native-governed state. This was no 
sordid ambition, no braggart desire for aggrandisement. 
Their zeal for the welfare of the dusky millions was sincere, 
and they felt keenly the abuses of the native regimes and 
believed amendment hopeless. Experience had taught 
them how great a boon to the natives is the rule of the 
Englishman ; they had before their eyes the example of 
the Punjab and, as a contrast, its former dependency 
Kashmir ; Sind and Rajputana lay side by side ; and the 
wretchedness of Oudh under its debauchee's misrule grew 
daily more pronounced. 

None could be more desirous of the people's welfare 
than were Lord Dalhousie and his enthusiasts, but, ac- 
knowledging this, the rival school maintained that they 



Incompatible Ideals 203 

had no right to deprive any state of its own form of govern- 
ment, even for its own undoubted good, so long as British 
supremacy was not menaced and treaties were not too 
flagrantly broken. To exercise supervision, to treat a 
state as a child and take in hand its affairs for a time, might 
be justifiable ; to cut off all hope of reaching man's estate 
and thus, for the folly of the fathers, to penalise the 
children and deprive them of their heritage, should be a 
last resort when all other means had failed. 

But of whatever school, the Punjabis received the 
announcement as a bolt from the blue, and grief was 
universal. Englishmen, Sikhs, and Mussulmans sorrowed 
over the loss of a dear friend, and more than one of the 
heroes of '57 felt that they could no longer work with the 
pride and enthusiasm that had hitherto sustained them 
and lifted their labours to so high a level, now that he, 
whose good opinion they valued most, whose approval had 
spurred them to ungrudging efforts, had gone from their 
midst. 

One of the first to hear was the famous soldier-adminis- 
trator, the regimental captain, who, at the age of thirty-four, 
was picked out by John Lawrence, over the heads of his 
seniors, to deal the Mutiny its most crushing blow. John 
Nicholson was in far Bannu, that " hell upon earth," 
which he was now " curbing to the fear of punishment." 
He hurriedly wrote back to ask if Sir Henry would take 
him also to Rajputana, as the Punjab would henceforward 
have little attraction for him, or for Reynell Taylor, or 
Lumsden of the Guides. " I certainly won't stay on the 
border in your absence," he wrote, and added his conviction 
that " poor little Abbott " would soon be driven out of 
the Punjab. 

A second letter from the unwilling founder of the 
Nikalsain sect quickly followed to inform Sir Henry that 
he had received " a letter from your brother, in which he 



204 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

said that he hoped to prove as staunch a friend to me as 
you had ever been. I cannot but feel obhged to him; 
but I know that, as a considerate and kind patron, you are 
not to be replaced. I would, indeed, gladly go with you, 
even on reduced allowances. I feel that I am little fit 
for regulation work, and I can never sacrifice common 
sense and justice, or the interests of a people and country, 
to red tape. A clever fellow like old Edwardes can manage 
both ; but it is beyond me. It would do your heart good 
to hear the Sikhs in the posts along the border talk of you. 
Surely, in their gratitude and esteem ' you have your 
reward,' " ^ 

The " warden of the marches " stayed on the frontier, 
where to this day, nearly fifty years after his death, the 
turbulent Pathans still hear on stormy nights " the tramp 
of Nikalsain's war-horse." 

In January 1853 Henry Lawrence and his wife left 
Lahore and never in the history of the East had any 
Englishman such a leave-taking. " Grief was depicted 
on every face," wrote Mr. Bosworth Smith. " Strong 
men, Herbert Edwardes conspicuous amongst them, might 
be seen weeping like little children ... a long cavalcade 
of aged native chiefs followed him. ... It was a long, 
living funeral procession from Lahore nearly to Amritsar," 
the holy city of the Sikhs, where the demonstrations of 
grief were renewed. There both Englishmen and natives 
had gathered in numbers, many chieftains having hastened 
from near and far, eager, as Mr. Raikes has said, for " a 
last word or even a look." 

The gaunt and broken-down figure - was never more seen 
in the Punjab. 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 206. 

^ " His active and somewhat attenuated frame seemed a prison- 
house which had been gradually worn away by the fluttering of 
the soul within." — Sir Rd. Temple, Men and Events of my Time in 
India. 



CHAPTER XIX 

(1853-1856) 

JOHN LAWRENCE RULES THE PUNJAB 

John Supreme in the Punjab — " How would Henry have acted? " — 
John Nicholson, Neville Chamberlain, Robert Napier, Donald 
Macleod — Treaty with Afghanistan — Lord Dalhousie's Affec- 
tion for John — Last Meeting between the Brothers. 

As " Chief Commissioner of the Punjab," John Lawrence 
was now free to act on his own responsibiHty, subject to 
the approval of Lord Dalhousie, and of that he was assured. 
But if the elder brother was a broken-hearted man, the 
younger was not happy ; no sense of elation filled his soul ; 
there was no rejoicing as over a victory. His love for 
Henry was deep and lasting, and the reflection that he had 
been the reluctant cause of his brother's mortification 
left him sorrowing, but his determination to do his duty 
was as firm as ever. 

Aware of the strong feeling in favour of his brother, in 
the hearts of the very men upon whose assistance he most 
depended, he feared there would be trouble with others 
besides Nicholson. A smaller man would have felt ag- 
grieved and would have shown it; a weaker would have 
attempted to ingratiate himself by praise and favour; 
one endowed with his brusque honesty and stern self- 
reliance might have been tempted to force his refractory 
subordinates to acknowledge him as master. 

None of these things did John Lawrence. He respected 
the loyalty of the subalterns to their old captain, and 

205 



2o6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

liked them the better for it ; and he proceeded to win them 
by tact and patient firmness, and by self-control. His 
manner changed somewhat, and he lost much of that 
apparent harshness which those who did not know him 
well were apt to misunderstand. No motive of policy 
brought about this change. His brother's farewell words 
had sunk deep, and the influence of religion, gaining a 
greater hold month by month, was mellowing the grand 
and rugged character. 

It is more easy to be tolerant of another's views when 
supreme, when the opponent has no power to frustrate or 
impede, than when yoked to another, unable to act until 
he has been convinced. In argument the temptation is 
to score points in favour of our own views rather than to 
probe for the truth. Believing that our cause is the only 
right one, we look for, and attach undue importance to, 
every fact that seems to strengthen it. Afterwards, when 
the need for further disputation has disappeared, comes 
the reflection that, after all, there was much force in the 
other's arguments, and we look with less aversion upon 
the idea of a compromise which is something more than 
the famous " Brown compromise " of Harry East. 

And so it was with John Lawrence. Now that he was 
no longer compelled either to combat or defer to his 
brother's opinions, he became more susceptible to that 
brother's influence. " He succeeded," said General 
Reynell Taylor, " to many of the graces of his lost brother ; " 
and Mr. Bosworth Smith has recorded that, when con- 
fronted by a difficult problem, he would ask himself: 
"What would Henry have said? How would Henry 
have acted? " 

There were still some sixty thousand tenure cases to be 
considered, and his recommendations upon these were 
more favourable than before to the jaghirdars. There is 
a certain irony in the reflection that Lord Dalhousie, in 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 207 

disallowing some of these as too generous, should have 
" appealed from the John Lawrence of the present to the 
John Lawrence of former days."^ 

There was little change in the policy of the Punjab. 
Roads, inundation canals, and other public works were 
extended; industry and education were encouraged; the 
survey was completed, and the revenue assessed according 
to the quality of the soil. The village community system 
was made use of, a community being assessed, and the 
lambardars of the village proportioning to each man his 
share. These headmen were also held generally responsible 
for the behaviour of their villages, and their authority 
was upheld. 

Nothing in the Punjab was too small for the Chief Com- 
missioner's consideration. He studied not only the men 
but their fields and crops and wells; he criticised the 
breeds of cattle and horses and praised or made suggestions ; 
and he practised as well as preached his doctrine that work 
was the highest duty of man. 

The province continued to progress. New men were 
brought in, of whom Richard Temple proved perhaps the 
greatest help to his chief. Montgomery was appointed 
Judicial Commissioner and Mr. Edmonstone the Revenue 
Commissioner, and John Lawrence supervised all their 
doings, instructing, encouraging, and remonstrating, with 
infinite tact. He never took to himself the credit for 
the labour of another, and would suffer gladly the idiosyn- 
crasies of any who were really zealous for the people and 
the province. Laziness or indifference to the public weal 
he would not countenance. 

Henry's training — indispensable at first when chaos 

reigned, when trust in the friendship and integrity of the 

English was all-important — showed its defects, now that 

the time had come for a more scientific regime. " A 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 343. 



2o8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

clever fellow like old Edwardes can manage both," 
Nicholson had said; but he, Robert Napier, and others 
of the old Punjab school could with difficulty be induced 
to consult their chief before taking some momentous step. 
They were trained to act on their own responsibility, and 
John Lawrence's racy and good-humoured pleading for 
occasional reports of their proceedings and accounts of 
their expenditure was treated with scant consideration. 
They were too busy making history to write it. 

Their contempt for red tape carried them too far. Their 
chief was not the man to prefer a lengthy essay on the 
condition of a district to wholesome action calculated to 
improve that same condition. But he had to take a view 
broader and deeper than theirs, and much as he admired 
his spirited team, " Coachman John " rightly insisted on 
a firm grip of the reins. 

The waywardness of his best officers greatly increased 
the work and anxiety of the Chief Commissioner. The 
principal offender was the young captain before whom the 
border trembled. That a sect was formed in honour of 
Nicholson is well known, and the more he tried to thrash 
adoration out of the hearts of his worshippers the louder 
swelled the chants in his praise. Even the Mussulmans 
regarded him as a type of the saint-heroes of their legends, 
and John Nicholson, unarmed, could make an assemblage 
of cut-throats shake in their shoes as effectively as could 
the bayonets of a regiment. 

Nicholson was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable 
men of all time, defying comparison and classification. 
"Of what class is John Nicholson the type?" wrote 
Edwardes, for Mr. Raikes' Notes on the Revolt of the North- 
West Provinces. " Of none ; for truly he stands alone. 
But he belongs essentially to the school of Henry Lawrence. 
I only knocked down the walls of the Bannu forts, John 




I 



MAHZUD WAZIRIS FROM THE BANNU DISTRICT. 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 209 

Nicholson has since reduced the people (the most ignorant, 
depraved, and bloodthirsty in the Punjab) to such a state 
of good order and respect for the laws that, in the last year 
of his charge, not only was there no murder, burglary, or 
highway robbery, but not an attempt at any of those 
crimes." ^ 

To one man only would he bend the knee — to Henry 
Lawrence. His " boundless devotion to Henry made him 
stiff and unfriendly to John," said Daly, and the chief's 
character stands out sound and wholesome in his dealings 
with this difficult subaltern. Firm he was, but very 
patient, ever ready to put the best construction on 
Nicholson's acts, and resolved to retain him where he was 
" a tower of strength " rather than aUow his place to be 
taken by one more docile but less efficient. 

On one occasion Nicholson manifested a strong inclina- 
tion to lead in person a punitive expedition into the hills, 
and John Lawrence gently restrained him, because he had 
not obtained the sanction of the brigadier in charge of the 
troops. Nicholson's reply was short and unsatisfactory, 
and the Chief Commissioner wrote again. 

" I shall be very glad if you punish the Sheoranis, but 
get Hodgson [the brigadier] to agree in your measures. . . . 
Pray report officially all incursions. I shall get into 
trouble if you don't. The Governor-General insists on 
knowing all that goes on, and not unreasonably; but I 
can't tell him this if I don't hear details." ^ 

Was Nicholson recalling the request for official reports 
when he sent this grim note to his chief? " Sir, — I have 

1 " A young officer recently died in Bannu, at whose funeral his 
friends were astonished to see large numbers of natives. They, 
however, had heard that he was a nephew of the great Nicholson, 
and they had come to do honour to that family." — Blackwood' s 
Magazine, November, 1904, Some Punjab Frontier Recollections, 
by Colonel Moncriefi. 

* Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 348-349. 



2IO The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the honour to inform you that I have just shot a man who 
came to kill me." ^ 

Until the outbreak of the Mutiny Nicholson remained 
a rebel against the authority of John Lawrence, though 
he admitted to Sir Henry that " John has been very for- 
bearing, and I am sure puts up with much from me on 
your account." The following extracts from his corre- 
spondence shows how differently he bore himself towards 
the elder brother. 

" My dear Nicholson," Sir Henry had written in 1849 
after an outburst of righteous indignation, " let me advise 
you, as a friend, to curb your temper, and bear and forbear 
with natives and Europeans, and you will be as distinguished 
as a Civilian as you are as a Soldier. Don't think it neces- 
sary to say all you think to every one. The world would 
be one mass of tumult if we all gave candid opinions of 
each other. I admire your sincerity as much as any man 
can do, but say thus much as a general warning. Don't 
think I allude to any specific act ; on the contrary, from 
what I saw in camp, I think you have done much toward 
conquering yourself; and I hope to see the conquest 
completed." 

" My dear Colonel," Nicholson replied. " Very many 
thanks for yours of the 7th, and the friendly advice which 
it contains. I am not ignorant of the faults of my temper, 

1 Probably Lord Lawrence never knew that about this period he 
himself was in danger of assassination. While on tour his thorough- 
ness and determination to master every problem greatly increased 
the labours of those whose work he was inspecting. When at 
Murdan the men of the Guides did not approve of the way in which 
he monopolised the time of their popular commandant, and 
Lumsden's Afridi orderly had a proposal to make. " Since the 
great Lawrence came," said he, " you have been worried and 
distressed; many have observed this, and that he is always looking 
at papers, asking questions, and overhauling your accounts. Has 
he said anything to pain you? Is he interfering with you? He 
starts for Peshawur to-morrow morning; there is no reason why 
he should reach it." — Lumsden of the Guides, p. 108. 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 2 1 1 

and you are right in supposing that I do endeavour to 
overcome them — I hope with increasing success. ... A 
knowledge of the disease is said to be half the cure, and I 
trust the remaining half will not be long before it is 
effected." 1 

Nicholson's bluntness soon plunged him into a contro- 
versy with that fine soldier and gentleman, Neville Chamber- 
lain, who had succeeded Hodgson as brigadier in his 
district. The role of peacemaker fell, of course, to the 
Chief Commissioner, who, throughout the lengthy corre- 
spondence which ensued, showed himself patient, wise, and 
just. The quarrel arose out of a Waziri raid in which 
Nicholson's friend, Zeman Khan, had been slain. The 
Commissioner of Bannu complained strongly to his chief 
of the incapacity of Chamberlain's troops, \vhich, so he 
maintained, ought to have been able to prevent the outrage, 
and he mentioned four recent occasions on which raiders 
had not been molested. He did not mince matters, and 
Chamberlain, highly incensed, demanded an apology. 

Lawrence wrote several times to each to explain the 
other's point of view, and at the same time to palliate 
those expressions calculated to give offence. He pleaded 
earnestly and tactfully that each should be willing to 
overlook much from the other as the reputations of both 
were too firm to be easily shaken. 

He told Chamberlain how Nicholson, whose ambition 
had been to have the command of the Frontier Force, had 
withdrawn his application as soon as he heard that it was 
the post that Chamberlain also desired, saying, " That he 
would never think of being a candidate while you were 
available, as he believed you were much more fitted for 
the post than himself," and he also begged Nicholson to 
write to express his regret for his strictures upon Chamber- 
lain's force ; but both were implacable. 

^ Kaye's Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 442. 



2 1 2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

" I have got a long letter (official) from Chamberlain," 
he then wrote to Nicholson, " who asks for replies, twenty 
in number, in respect of the raids you reported. If any- 
thing will shut your mouth, it will be these queries, for I 
often find it difficult to get an answer to one. However if 
you can answer them all, and promptly, when replying to 
this letter, I shall be glad if you will express your regret 
that Chamberlain has been annoyed, and say you had no 
intention to reflect on the force. He is much too sensitive 
in such matters. Still, he is a fine fellow, and will do the 
force much good. Moreover, I should be much grieved if 
he went away in disgust, whether the cause was real or 
imaginary." ^ 

To Edwardes on the same subject — 

" I return Nicholson's letter. I have got an of&cial 
letter from Chamberlain, putting twenty queries on each 
of the four raids to Nicholson ! Now, if anything will bring 
' Nick ' to his senses it will be these queries. He will polish 
off a tribe in the most difficult fortress, or ride the border 
like ' belted Will ' of former days ; but one query in writing 
is often a stumper for a month or two. The ' pen-and-ink 
work,' as he calls it, ' does not suit him.' " 

The strained relations continued for some months, 
Chamberlain being the first to hold out his hand; and he 
it was who watched by the couch of his friend and comrade 
two years later when the hero of Delhi lay dying. 

Once more had John Lawrence to act as peacemaker, 
this time between Edwardes and his subordinate. Captain 
Coke — ^he who raised the ist Punjab Infantry, " Coke's 
Afridis," who rendered such fine service during the Mutiny. 
Napier, the engineer, likewise took the bit between his 
teeth and was inclined to bolt. As a disciple of Henry 
Lawrence he was unwilling to admit the argument of 
expense and the Head of the Punjab was brought to book 
^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 408. 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 2 i 3 

by the Board of Directors for the sins of his subordinate — 
for the expenditure on pubHc works that had been incurred 
without his authority and in spite of his protests. 

" . . . He is all for pushing on works or originating 
new ones," Lawrence wrote to the Governor-General. 
" But he dislikes details and accounts of all kinds, and 
cannot find it in his heart to censure any one under him. . . . 
He has, also, no proper idea of economy. As he naively 
observed last night, he had no idea that he could go on too 
fast, but supposed that Government might believe that 
enough was not being done, sufficient money not being 
spent. Your Lordship may depend on my doing all I can 
to get things placed on a proper footing ; and, if possible, 
I will do this without any explosion with Napier, for whom 
I have a great regard. He has the most decided aversion 
to estimates of all kinds, and considers that they are 
nothing but ' snares to entrap the Engineers.' " ^ 

But if the disciple had the weakness of his master he also 
shared his strength, for whatsoever he undertook that he 
did well; and his chief was not blind to his merits. " The 
work he [Napier] has done since annexation is enormous, 
and would have killed many men." And in 1867, when 
it fell to the lot of John Lawrence to recommend a general 
to command the army in Abyssinia, he showed that Napier's 
thoroughness had not been forgotten. " If you want the 
thing thoroughly well done," said he, "go to Napier." 

The idiosyncrasies of Donald Macleod, John Lawrence's 
dearest friend, placed an additional burden on the already 
over-weighted shoulders of the Chief Commissioner. 
Admitting that " morally and intellectually he has no 
superior in the Punjab, perhaps no equal," he was obliged 
to find fault with Macleod's tendency to run into arrears 
that had to be cleared away periodically by the chief 
himself. 

* Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 413. 



2 14 T^^ Lawrences of the Punjab 

"He is too fond of polishing," Lawrence wrote to 
Edwardes, " and his execution is not equal to his designs. 
He wastes much time on unimportant matters. He spends 
as much time on a petty case as on an important one. 
His Commissionership has not fair and honest work for a 
man of ability and knowledge for six hours a day. I know 
it, for I was Commissioner there for three years when it 
had to be licked into shape. It is useless saying that we 
must choose between quality and quantity. We must 
have both, or the result is a failure. There are certain 
things to be done in an official berth, and a certain time 
to do them in. A good and efficient administrator will so 
distribute his time as to do them all. He will economise 
when it can be done safely, and throw in his power when it 
is wanted. Edmonstone has not the intellect of Donald; 
he has not his knowledge of the customs and habits of the 
people; but by order and economy of time, joined to an 
iron constitution, he did treble the work that Donald 
does; and on the whole, he did it better. He would not 
do a given case so well, perhaps, but he would do a hundred, 
while the other would do ten, and he would do them rightly. 
Donald spends half the day writing elegant demi-official 
chits. I spin off a dozen in a day, and they don't take an 
hour. They may want the elegant turn he gives to his, 
but they are to the point and do all that is necessary. 
Edmonstone, Raikes, and Barnes have more settlements 
than Macleod. The revenues of the country cannot afford 
more men. We must either reduce the salaries, and thus 
effect a saving to pay for more men, or we must get more 
work out of our Donalds. An assistant is of little or no 
use to a really efficient Commissioner. The mere drudgery 
of the office should be done by the head clerk, who gets 
the pay of an educated man. No practical man would 

have such a man as for his head clerk for a month. 

Donald moans, but retains him. At this moment, he has 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 2 i 5 

not sent up any report of his administration for the past 
three years, and has several hundred appeals standing over, 
some as long as four years. He has men under trial in 
jail for upwards of a year. * Bis dat qui cito dat ' is a good 
motto in administration. Donald is not fit for a new 
country; he has, with all his virtues, radical defects. I 
see this, who love the man ; what more can I say? " ^ 

With Mr. Barnes — commended in the letter last quoted — 
he had to remonstrate because of an excess of the virtue 
that Mr. Macleod lacked. " Ah, Barnes! " said the chief, 
"you are a very clever fellow; you can get through in 
half an hour what it would take most of us an hour to do 
equally well ; and if only you would not insist on getting 
through in a quarter of an hour instead of half an hour, 
you would do it excellently ." ^ 

In the autumn of 1853 Colonel Mackeson, the Com- 
missioner of Peshawar, less fortunate than Nicholson, 
was murdered by a fanatic. After Lahore, Peshawar 
was the most important post in the Punjab. As in Bannu, 
the Pathans there were bred as robbers and murderers, 
and the man to control them must possess uncommon 
qualifications. Lord Dalhousie had thoughts of appoint- 
ing Sir James Outram, but Lawrence urged strongly the 
surpassing claims of Herbert Edwardes whose experience 
of the people was greater. He pointed out that Edwardes, 
being younger than himself and already his subordinate 
and personal friend, would be prepared to carry out his 
policy; whereas Outram, "a fine soldier and a noble 
fellow," was Lawrence's senior in age, and had filled high 
positions, and would therefore find greater difficulty in 
subordinating his own views. Lord Dalhousie gave way. 

During the last months of 1853 Lawrence visited the 
frontier and personally inspected the work of his outpost 

' Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 355-356. 
* Ibid. vol. i. p. 379. 



2 1 6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

officers/ and here the soldier-instinct peeped out. The 
Afridis of Kohat had been taught a lesson, but their Bori 
cousins still lacked the blessings of experience. They 
began to raid the country-side in the neighbourhood of 
Peshawar, murdering and carrying off people and cattle 
as in the brave days of old. The Chief Commissioner went 
to Peshawar and found the Afridis insolent and defiant, 
for the Bori hills were considered impregnable and the 
valley had not been entered by an enemy for centuries. 
However he collected a force of Europeans, Guides, and 
Gurkhas and soundly thrashed the tribesmen, and in his 
old age Lord Lawrence, " with boyish glee and a visible 
sparkle in his almost sightless grey eyes,"^ would often 
speak of this day when he threw off the civilian and 
rejoiced to be under fire. 

He had secured the right man in the right place at 
Peshawar, but Edwardes did not content himself with 
carrying out the instructions of his chief. His mind was 
essentially initiative, and before he had been many months 
at the mouth of the Khyber he began to evolve a note- 
worthy scheme to safeguard the peace of the border; no 
less than the binding to England by treaty of that very 
Dost Mohammed of Kabul, whose advances had once been 
so ignominiously — and so disastrously — rejected, who had 
been in turn dethroned and enthroned, and who had made 
common cause with his Sikh enemies in 1849. In due 
course, Edwardes submitted his plan to Lawrence and to 
Lord Dalhousie, the latter approving, the former being 
sceptical. What, said Lawrence, was the use of a treaty 

1 He was accompanied by his wife and the one child who had not 
been sent to England. A few years before this Edwardes and 
Nicholson, returning home on furlough, had taken charge of the 
Lawrence girls and had made the voyage a delightful holiday for 
the youngsters. And now Nicholson again won the heart of the 
mother by his kindness to the child while they remained in his 
district. 

* Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 36^. 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 217 

with an Afghan, who would keep his word just as long as 
suited his own interests, and not a moment longer? To 
which Edwardes replied that the amir might be made to 
see that his interests were bound up with those of England. 
But John Lawrence was ever inclined to underestimate 
the power of native monarchs and chieftains for good or 
evil. Confident in Britain's strength he preferred to stand 
alone, independent of friends, defying enemies to do their 
worst. Moreover, he held that overtures to the amir 
would be regarded as a sign of weakness, and the idea that 
England was so hard pressed as to make a bid for an 
Afghan alliance against Russia would have a bad effect 
throughout Asia. Edwardes met the argument with the 
assertion that Dost Mohammed was ready to make the 
overtures and simply desired encouragement; he, not 
England, would be the suppliant. 

Edwardes prevailed. The heir-apparent of Kabul was 
sent to Peshawar to meet John Lawrence and draw up 
the treaty. Lawrence would have preferred that the 
Commissioner of Peshawar should have this honour and 
responsibility, but the amir had stipulated for Jan Larens, 
so Edwardes, always enthusiastically loyal, elected to 
stand aside for his chief. In England the treaty was 
received with acclamation, the credit being universally 
accorded to John Lawrence, who disclaimed it for two good 
reasons. Honest to the core he wished Edwardes to have 
whatever praise might be due; and, secondly, he had 
little faith in the efficacy of the treaty, and hardly hoped 
that any good would accrue therefrom. 

But Edwardes seems to have been right. Whether 
influenced by good faith or self-interest Dost Mohammed 
stood loyal and kept his mountaineers in hand even when, 
in '57, Peshawar his beloved, and the whole Trans-Indus 
border, were well within his grasp. 

The account of the relations of John Lawrence with his 



2 1 8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

subordinates could not be more fittingly concluded than 
with these words of Sir John Kaye: " Our English officers 
for the most part lived pure lives in that heathen land; 
and private immorality under the administration of John 
Lawrence grew into a grave public offence." ^ 

Nature's claim for relaxation was month by month 
becoming more insistent, and Lawrence could not continue 
to ignore the demand. Reluctantly he made the admission 
that even his iron constitution and stubborn will were not 
superior to the laws that govern life. 

" My work here is almost too much for me," he at length 
admitted. " Night and day I am hard at the mill. No 
old bullock in a drought is harder worked at a well irrigat- 
ing the fields than I am." ^ To Henry he wrote at a later 
period: "The work here has vastly increased since you 
left. I am often fairly bewildered with it, though I work 
at the desk steadily from the minute I come in before 
breakfast — with an interval of ten minutes for breakfast . . . 
until I can no longer see. I never take a holiday or knock 
off even for an hour." 

At an early date he had been compelled to implore that 
letters might not be crossed, as he was " almost blind 
with reading manuscript," and in 1855 he expressed the 
fear that blindness would soon be his portion. In the 
summer of this year he was dangerously ill with scarlet 
fever, and Lord Dalhousie, adopting strong measures, 
practically forbade him to leave the hills during the hot 
weather. " Never mind the Punjab Report," said he, 
" or any other report, but coddle yourself, turn idler, and 
get yourself up again." ^ 

The masterful Governor-General had succumbed to the 

1 The Sepoy War, vol. i. pp. 64-65. 

2 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 444, 461. 

3 Ibid. vol. i. p. 380. 



John Lawrence Rules the Punjab 219 

attraction of the strong, silent man, and the relations 
between him and his chief lieutenant were now of a very- 
pleasant nature. Lawrence had reported an interview 
with a highland chieftain who had never before seen a 
European, and the Viceroy playfully commended Law- 
rence's diplomacy in showing himself " as the first specimen 
of the conquering race. I have no doubt he will be as 
desirous to retain a recollection of you as I am, and as I 
have lately taken the liberty of showing. For I have to 
apologise to you for getting a daguerreotype taken from 
the portrait of you which Mr. C. Saunders brought down." ^ 

When Dalhousie's tenn of office was about to expire 
he expressed in unmistakable language his appreciation 
of the work done by John Lawrence, and offered to ask 
for either a baronetcy or a K.C.B. The Chief Commis- 
sioner decided in favour of the latter on the grounds that 
he was too poor for a baronetcy, and Dalhousie applauded 
the decision. In his letter of thanks Lawrence expressed 
his sense of a personal loss. 

" I am glad to hear your lordship thinks we shall like 
Lord Canning, and I hope he will be satisfied with us. . . . 
A stimulus has been given to the general administration 
of India, and a general vigour infused into all departments, 
which, if only carried on, must wipe out the reproach under 
which the Government formerly laboured. 

" To myself, personally, the change will be great. I can 
hardly expect to have so kind, so considerate, and so 
friendly a master. As one grows in years, one feels almost 
a disinclination to form new relations, even on the public 
account. ... To your lordship the return to your own 
country will probably be a subject of unmixed pleasure, 
but to the friends you leave behind, among whom I am 
one of the sincerest, it cannot fail to be a cause of real 
regret." 2 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 369. ^ Ibid. vol. i. pp. 423, 427, 432. 



2 20 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

On February 17, 1856, he repaired to Calcutta to see the 
last of his chief. " My dear old Boy," ran the note that 
greeted his arrival, " I have just received your letter, 
and as I shall be in Calcutta to-morrow evening for good, 
I will not give you the trouble of coming out here, but will 
see you, and with sincere pleasure, on Tuesday forenoon. 
As for my health, Jan La'rin, I am a cripple in every 
sense." 

The affectionate and pathetic tone of these last letters of 
the little autocrat to the one brother is in marked contrast 
with that of the earlier letters which so estranged the other. 
The " great Pro-Consul " had sacrificed health and even 
life to a sense of duty. Well aware of the penalty, he had 
stayed in India beyond his time because his work was 
incomplete. On March 6 he sailed for England, returning 
home to die. 

From on board ship he wrote again : 

My dear Lawrence, — The home news at Ceylon showed me 
your name in the Gazette as K.C.B. at last. You would take for 
granted my joy in this recognition of your merits and services. 
But I must give you joy nevertheless in words, and I do it from my 
heart. No man ever won the honour better, and of all your relatives 
and friends, not one has greater gratification in seeing honour done 
to you than I have. Pray offer my warmest congratulations and 
my kindest wishes to Lady Lawrence. 

I was very miserable in parting from you all upon the ghaut 
that day. Of all I leave behind me, no man's friendship is more 
valued by me, no man's services are so highly estimated by me, 
as yours. God bless you, my dear John; write to me as you 
promised, and believe me now and always, — Your sincere friend, 

Dalhousie. 

The last meeting between Henry and John took place 
during this visit to Calcutta. For three days they were 
united, comrades once more, the old dispute buried and 
the heart-burnings forgotten. 



CHAPTER XX 
(1853-1856) 

HENRY LAWRENCE AND THE RAJPUTS 

Rajput Degeneracy — Gaol Reform — Suttee checked — Death of 
Lady Lawrence — Absorption of Native States — Annexation of 
Oudh. 

The Native States of Rajputana, eighteen in number, 
comprise a territory larger than the Punjab but more 
sparsely populated, the inhabitants — mainly of Rajput, 
Jat, and aboriginal descent — not exceeding twelve millions. 
The true Rajputs are the descendants of the Aryan 
conquerors of Hindustan and are therefore of the same 
branch of the human family as the English. The Aryans 
of India, known as Brahmans and Rajputs (priests and 
warriors), number roughly some sixteen millions, the great 
majority of the one hundred and thirty millions of natives 
known as Hindus — as distinguished from Mohammedans 
and aborigines — being of mixed Aryan and non-Aryan 
descent. Though the Rajputs suffered greatly at the hands 
of the Moslem hordes they were never completely over- 
whelmed. Moving westwards from Delhi, as the invaders 
seized upon the more delectable lands, many of their 
princes settled in, and gave a name to, Rajasthan, now 
known as Rajputana. There were founded the eighteen 
sovereign states, which, early in the eighteenth century, 
became willing feudatories to the dominant English. 
The true Rajputs are perhaps the proudest race in the 
world, and can boast of genealogical trees beside which 

221 p 



222 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

those of the proudest nobihty of Britain, and even the more 
ancient families of Rome and Vienna, seem but of mushroom 
growth. 

The " sons of the sun and moon " are, however, degener- 
ate descendants of the heroes of the Mahabharata and the 
Ramayana, and the Pax Britannica has not proved an 
unmixed blessing to the Rajput nobles. The path of 
military glory having been closed to them, they are no 
longer cast in the heroic mould of their forefathers, and 
" the names of Jeimul and Putta " are in danger of 
oblivion. There is no further need for the Rajput chivalry 
to die for their ideals of honour, for the women of Chitor 
to perish by thousands in the flames in order to escape 
dishonour, nor for their daughters to prefer exile in the 
wilderness rather than disgrace their blood by marriage 
with a Mohammedan, even though he be the most magnifi- 
cent prince of the earth. Too proud to enlist in the 
Company's regiments and rub shoulders with persons of 
low degree, prevented by their watchful guardians from 
making war among themselves, the Rajputs of Rajputana 
have found no worthy occupation as a substitute for the 
call to arms. A slothful peace had little to offer them save 
opium and vice, and their sterner virtues have been 
gradually lost. No longer called upon to sacrifice them- 
selves upon the altar of patriotism, the Rajputs were 
living the life of a sheltered race. The swords and spears 
with which they had been wont to guard their honour 
were now mere ornaments, and neither fulfilled their 
original purpose nor were likely to be turned into plough- 
shares or pruning-hooks. 

Sir Henry Lawrence's position in Rajputana offered far 
less scope for his zeal in well-doing, and gave him con- 
siderably less authority, than he had enjoyed since the 
departure from Khatmandu. The Rajput principalities 
are jealous of interference and very jealous of one another. 



Henry Lawrence and the Rajputs 223 

The Resident's duties were to keep the peace, to control 
the external affairs of the states, to effect all possible im- 
provements in the internal administration by advice and 
moral suasion, without undue interference of a nature to 
excite resentment, and, by example, to set a higher tone. 

He paid flying visits to the chief towns of the various 
states, taking the measure of the Rajput princes and of his 
subordinates, the political agents. He entered the gaols 
and finding them, as he had expected, unfit for human 
habitation, he prevailed upon the rajas to provide better 
quarters. In a letter to Kaye he told how he had issued a 
circular to the princes, remarking : — 

" That in different gaols I had seen strange sights that 
must, if known to beneficent rulers, revolt their feelings, 
etc., etc. I therefore suggested that all princes who kept 
gaols should give orders somewhat to the following effect : 
Classification, so as to keep men and women apart; also 
great offenders from minor ones; tried prisoners from 
untried; ventilation; places to wash, etc., etc. Well, 
in the course of two or three months I got favourable 
answers from almost all ; and heard that in several places, 
including Jypur [the most troublesome state], they 
proposed to build new gaols. At Udaipur, my brother 
(George) told me that they released two hundred prisoners 
on receipt of my circular, and certainly they kept none that 
ought to have been released ; for when I went to Udaipur 
last February, I found not a man in gaol but murderers, 
every individual of whom acknowledged to me his offence 
as I walked round and questioned them. The Durbars 
do not like these visits ; but they are worth paying at all 
risks, for a few questions to every tenth or twentieth 
prisoner gives opportunities to innocent persons to come 
forward and petition. No officer appears ever before to 
have been in one of these dens." ^ 

1 Lives of Indian Officefs, pp. 312-313. 



2 24 'T'he Lawrences of the Punjab 

He next turned his attention to suttee, a custom more 
honoured in Rajputana than elsewhere, and succeeded in 
diminishing the practice, checking it effectually in more 
than one state. For four years he lived among the Rajputs 
doing good, stimulating with his approbation such of the 
princes as would take even the slightest interest in their 
subjects' welfare, overawing those who tried to stem the 
tide of progress. Encouragement was scant; disappoint- 
ments were many. Barbarous as was the Nepal court, 
treacherous and pitiless as had been the Lahore durbar, 
there was more hope for the upstart Gurkhas and Sikhs 
than for these Rajput aristocrats; yet at the close of his 
sojourn at A j mere there was little active discontent in 
Rajputana — in marked contrast with its apprehensive 
state when he entered upon his duties there. Five of the 
principalities were then under his direct management, 
two of the rajas being children and three unfit to govern. 

The Resident was privileged to retire for the hot season 
to Mount Abu, a health resort in the south of Rajputana, 
afterwards selected as the situation for one of the Lawrence 
Asylums. The mountain air suited him and he gained 
strength, but his wife's health had suffered too much from 
the climate of Lahore for the change to do more than pro- 
long her life for a few months, and on January 15, 1854, 
Honoria Lawrence died. To her husband the blow was 
tempered by the assurance of a reunion not long to be 
delayed, an assurance largely due to the saintly influence 
of her who had passed away. At the bedside he sought 
relief by writing to his sons in England a tribute to the 
memory of their mother: " . . . So I went and took my 
last look of her dear sweet face, and prayed for the last time 
by her side — prayed that what I had neglected to do during 
her life I might now do after her death, prayed that her 
pure spirit might be around you and me, to guide us to 
good and shield us from evil. . . . Again, I say, my boys, 



Henry Lawrence and the Rajputs 225 

remember with love, and show your love by your acts: 
few boys ever had such a mother." ^ 

Her friendship had been a precious gift, to whose in- 
spiration to true unselfish action India owed no slight 
debt. As Lady Lawrence lay dying, Nicholson received 
the following letter from Sir Henry : 

My dear Nicholson, — Your long and kind letter of May will, 
I hope, some day be answered; but I write by my wife's bedside 
to give you a message she has just sent you. " Tell him I love him 
dearly as if he were my son. I know that he is noble and pure to 
his fellow-men; that he thinks not of himself; but tell him he is 
a sinner ; that he will one day be as weak and as near death as I am. 
Ask him to read but a few verses of the Bible daily. ..." I have 
just told her I had written to you as she had bidden me . . . she 
replied, " May God bless what you have said to him! I love him 
very much. I often think of all those fine young fellows in the 
Punjab, and what our example ought to have been to them, and 
how much we have neglected them." My dear Nicholson, these 
may or may not be dying words; but she is very, very ill, and has 
been so for six weeks. . . . Daily and nightly she talks of you and 
others as of her sons and brothers. Her advice and example to you 
all has ever been good. Would that mine had been equally so. 
We have been cast on a pleasant land here, and are thankful for 
what God has done in spite of ourselves. Humanly speaking, she 
could not be alive now had we not left Lahore.^ 

Though Henry Lawrence, in the simple words of his 
epitaph, " tried to do his duty " with the same singleness 
of aim and undiminished courage, the light had gone out 
of his life. The sun broke through occasionally, but, while 
he lived, the clouds were nevermore to lift. 

The feeling of unrest among the semi-independent 
kingdoms of India was spreading apace. The annexation 
of the Punjab had been understood by them as a just and 
natural consequence of aggression, but it was now becoming 
more and more evident that no native state was regarded 
with a very friendly eye by the Governor-General. Mis- 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 249. 
* Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 449. 



2 26 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

rule and unbridled licence were undoubtedly the reason 
of, not the excuse for. Lord Dalhousie's frank resolve 
" to take advantage of every just opportunity for acquiring 
territory, for adding to the revenues of the Public Treasury, 
and for extending the uniform application of our system 
of Government to those whose best interests we sincerely 
believe will be promoted thereby." 

Lord Dalhousie's Indian experience was as yet incon- 
siderable when the Mahratta Raja of Sattara died without 
heir, an event aU too common in Hindu states. As 
Brahman doctrine refuses hope of future bliss to him 
whose funeral rites have not been performed by a son, 
the custom of adoption prevailed, the offices of an adopted 
son being equally efficacious. " Politically," said Sir 
John Kaye,i " the right of adoption is as dear to the heart 
of a nation as it is personally to the individual it affects," 
and the Mogul emperors had recognised this right of their 
Hindu tributaries. As in England reluctance to anticipate 
death by making a will is so generally manifested, so in 
superstitious Hindustan the adoption is frequently post- 
poned until too late. In such cases Mahratta custom 
recognises the right of a widow to adopt on behalf of a 
deceased husband, in the hope that his known intentions 
will thereby be carried out. But the Company limited 
the right of a widow to those cases in which she had been 
formally empowered to adopt by her husband, and in spite 
of a strong protest from Sir George Clerk, Henry Law- 
rence's former chief, now Governor of Bombay, the 
Mahrattas of Sattara were no longer ruled by one of their 
own blood. 

" The Government," wrote Lord Dalhousie, " is bound 

in duty, as well as policy, to act on every such occasion 

with the purest integrity, and in the most scrupulous 

observance of good faith. Where even a shadow of doubt 

1 The Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 70. 



Henry Lawrence and the Rajputs 227 

can be shown, the claim should at once be abandoned. 
But where the right to territory by lapse is clear, the 
Government is bound to take that which is justly and 
legally its due, and to extend to that territory the benefits 
of our sovereignty." 

During Lord Dalhousie's term of office other two 
Mahratta states, Nagpore and Jhansi, were resumed. If 
" the shadow of doubt " was not lacking in the Sattara 
case, that of Nagpore was more easily justified, for there 
was no agreement with regard to an adopted son. General 
Low, now a member of the Council, urged his government, 
however, to defer to native sentiment and cited the bad 
effect upon Hindu opinion of the Sattara lapse, but Lord 
Dalhousie decided upon absorption, recording that he 
could not " admit that a kind and generous sentiment 
should outweigh a just and prudent policy." 

The Jhansi rajaship was a recent creation of the Com- 
pany, and on the death of the childless sovereign the 
Governor-General maintained his right to resume the 
territory. In 1857 ^^^ rani, afterwards distinguished 
as one of the few really able leaders of the rebellion, exacted 
a terrible price for the disregard of her privilege. 

The three principahties of Sattara, Nagpore, and Jhansi 
were Mahratta parvenus, lands once forfeit to the British, 
governments practically created by the Company's will, 
and Lord Dalhousie maintained with some justice that 
though the ruler of such a state had the right to adopt an 
heir to his property, he had no power to regulate the 
succession to the throne. On the other hand the practice 
with regard to successions had been capricious, " every 
conceivable variety of course had been pursued," the 
terms of treaties had been ambiguous, and there was much 
excuse for the expectation of the tributary states that the 
right of adoption, according to their custom, would be 
allowed. 



228 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

A very different case was that of Karauli in Rajputana, 
a dynasty existing long before the first Enghshman had 
set foot in Hindustan. Apphcation was made, on the 
death of the raja, for the recognition of a youth, Bharat 
Pal by name, as the adopted heir, and Lord Dalhousie, 
though at first in favour of annexation, hesitated to efiface 
the historic house, and referred the question to the Home 
Government. The decision went in favour of Bharat Pal's 
claim, but in the meanwhile Sir Henry Lawrence came 
forward to oppose both Governor-General and Home 
Government. The appointment of Bharat Pal was un- 
popular, said he, the late raja, who had adopted him, 
having been a mere boy, and by Rajput custom in such 
cases the nobles had the controlling voice and they were 
unanimously in favour of Madan Pal v/ho was older, better 
fitted to rule, and nearer of kin. He therefore championed 
the claims of Madan Pal. Recognising the force of Law- 
rence's arguments, Lord Dalhousie adopted his views; 
the State of Karauli was saved to do good service during 
the Mutiny, and the Rajput princes breathed more freely. 

Unhappily much mischief had been caused by the delay. 
Every native court was aware that an ancient dynasty 
had been threatened with extinction and that the Governor- 
General had contemplated the annexation of Rajput 
territory, and a feeling of uneasiness prevailed. No 
kingdom was safe ; the rumour spread that all the Rajput 
states were doomed ; that the old order was passing away. 
Henry Lawrence had saved Karauli — such was the in- 
correct report — but those who thought with him, who 
sympathised with native sentiment, were few in number; 
and when their influence need no longer be reckoned with 
the map of India would be uniformly red. 

Under quite different circumstances the doctrine of 
lapse had been interpreted in a manner destined to have 
an important bearing upon the Mutiny and upon the fate 



Henry Lawrence and the Rajputs 229 

of Sir Henry Lawrence. Early in the century the head of 
the Mahratta Confederacy had, by an act of unprovoked 
aggression, forfeited his kingdom. He had, however, 
met with generous treatment, in the form of a pension of 
eight lacs. Grateful for the clemency the deposed Peishwa 
rendered substantial aid during the Afghan and Sikh wars. 
Previous to his death in 185 1 he had adopted a kinsman 
known as Dundu Pant — the Nana Sahib of infamous 
memory, " a quiet, unostentatious young man, not at all 
addicted to any extravagant habits, and invariably showing 
a ready disposition to attend to the advice of the British 
Commissioner." Dundu Pant, with the rest of the late 
raja's large army of dependants, fully expected a continua- 
tion of the pension and of the titular dignity hitherto 
accorded, but the decision of the Government was against 
him. Well aware that Lord Dalhousie was immovable 
the Nana Sahib memorialised the Company and sent the 
notorious AzimuUa Khan to England, where, though he 
gained nothing for his master, he had the satisfaction of 
becoming the lion of a London season. 

The extinction of the Mahratta principalities would have 
entailed consequences of comparatively small importance, 
serving chiefly to agitate the native mind and arouse 
suspicions and fears for the future, had not the closing 
chapter of Lord Dalhousie's regime been so momentous 
for good and evil. His first act had been the annexation 
of the Punjab, a policy of benefit incalculable ; his last was 
the absorption of Oudh, a step — taken on behalf of the 
natives of that unhappy kingdom — which hastened and 
perhaps made certain the Mutiny. The story of the 
annexation of Oudh is essential to this narrative, leading 
up, as it does, to the crowning episodes in the lives of the 
brothers. 

From the date of the East India Company's supremacy in 
India the Mohammedan viceroys of the important province 



230 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

of Oudh had been our friendly allies, and its people had 
been the mainstay of the native army, so much so that 
the term poorheah, now applied indiscriminately to the 
sepoys, had originally served to indicate the men from 
Oudh. For fifty years its nawabs (viceroys of the Delhi 
emperor) had been supported by British bayonets in 
fulfilment of a treaty. But though this same treaty bound 
the nawab to administer the country in a manner that 
" should be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects " 
and " in conformity with the counsels of the officers of the 
East India Company," Oudh rapidly became the worst- 
governed kingdom of the East. The reason was apparent. 
T5nranny and misrule are generally tempered to the power 
of the tyrannised to resist. In Oudh there was no check on 
the profligacy, vice, and extortion of the nawabs, who 
were free from care, for had not the English undertaken to 
uphold them? The nawabs of Oudh had always been 
loyal to the suzerain power; there was no instance of 
treachery or of aid given to an enemy. In time of war 
they had supplied our armies with transport, grain, and 
cash; in all matters other than internal reform they had 
been prompt to meet the wishes of the Government of India ; 
and they imagined that the Governor-General would not 
readily find an excuse for the appropriation of their country. 
In the Calcutta Review of a much earlier date Sir Henry 
had pointed out that English interference in Oudh had 
wrought harm to the people. The paramount power was 
compelled by treaty to place a number of regiments at the 
service of the nawab; British officials had the right to 
advise and threaten and otherwise annoy the court of 
Oudh by their futile attempts to curb the king's desires, 
but no power to insist that their advice should be acted 
upon. They were thus placed in a false position calculated 
to harm rather than to benefit. The nawabs of Oudh do 
not appear to have been actively cruel so much as utterly 



Henry Lawrence and the Rajputs 231 

indifferent to the consequences of their self-indulgence; 
they did that which was evil because vice was easy and 
alluring, not because they found their pleasure in the 
misery of their subjects. " They had not the energy to be 
t3n:ants," said Kaye. 

The nawab had been warned by successive administra- 
tions; he paid no heed and the wretchedness of Oudh 
increased year by year. Three courses were open to the 
Governor-General ; to propose the annulment of the treaty 
and the withdrawal of the protecting British troops in the 
hope that a sense of his own weakness would induce the 
king to recognise at least the folly of his misrule ; to depose 
him and administer the land for the benefit of the natives ; 
and, thirdly, to take possession absolutely. 

Until the summer of 1854, when Outram succeeded him, 
the Resident at Lucknow (the capital of Oudh) had been 
Colonel Sleeman, the suppressor of thuggee, a man whose 
views on this and kindred topics coincided with those of 
Henry Lawrence and of Generals Low and Outram. His 
advice was: "Assume the administration but do not 
grasp the revenues of the country." ^ In the Calcutta 
Review of 1845 Henry Lawrence had written from Nepal: 
" Let not a rupee come into the Company's coffers. Let 
Oudh be at last governed, not for one man, the King, but 
for him and his people." " What the people want and 
most earnestly pray for," said Sleeman, " is that our 
government should take upon itself the responsibility of 
governing them well and permanently. All classes, save 
the knaves, who now surround and govern the King, 
earnestly pray for this — the educated classes because they 
would then have a chance of respectable emplojmient, 
which none of them now have ; the middle classes, because 
they find no protection or encouragement, and no hope 

1 Sleeman's Correspondence quoted in The Sepoy War, vol. i. 
^'g.iT,6 et seq. 



232 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

that their children will be permitted to inherit the property 
they leave . . . and the humbler classes, because they 
are now abandoned to the merciless rapacity of the starving 
troops. ..." 

But while urging this step upon the Court of Directors 
Sleeman sounded a note of warning, which passed unheeded. 
" If we do this," he wrote, " we must, in order to stand well 
with the rest of India, honestly and distinctly disclaim all 
interested motives, and appropriate the whole of the 
revenues for the benefit of the People and Royal Family of 
Oudh. If we do this all India will think us right." And 
he foretold to the Governor-General that, otherwise, " it 
would tend to accelerate the crisis which the doctrine of 
the absorbing school must sooner or later bring upon us." 

Though the doctors might differ as to treatment, they 
were agreed that the condition of Oudh had become so 
critical that the Government of India must interfere in its 
affairs. The champions of native states were of opinion 
that to absorb the province would be to punish the people 
of Oudh for having been the victims of oppression. They 
could see what so many Englishmen were blind to — that 
even though the natives might acknowledge that the more 
enlightened principles of English administration would 
change their lot for the better, they might not care to 
purchase this at the price of dependence upon the caprice 
of the alien, and by the sacrifice of the birthright of their 
children's children.^ To put aside the Nawab and take 
temporary charge of the country, until such time as a 

1 The native point of view was expressed to Mr. Irwin {Chapters 
on Oudh History and Affairs, p. 174) by a zamindar of Oudh, who 
had been one of the chief sufferers from the nawab's misrule, who 
had gained in material prosperity by the change, and who was a 
well- wisher of the English. He asked why the nawab had been 
deposed, terming him " a poor weak creature, a humble servant 
and follower of the British," and was unable to understand that the 
British Government could no longer tolerate the misrule and dis- 
order of Oudh. What had that to do with the British Government ? 



Henry Lawrence and the Rajputs 233 

capable and upright native ruler might be found or trained, 
would be not only justifiable but a moral duty that the 
Company should not seek to evade. 

But Lord Dalhousie was immovably convinced that the 
unhappy country could derive only temporary benefit 
from such temporary arrangement. On June 18, 1855, 
he signed the Minute in which he advocated that, though 
the king might retain his crown, " all powers, jurisdiction, 
rights, and claims " were to be vested in the Company, 
and, " the surplus revenue to be at the disposal of the 
Company," But the Home Government declared for 
annexation pure and simple; in February 1856 Oudh 
became a British province, and Lord Dalhousie, who, 
with a sense of duty that was nothing less than heroic, 
had stayed in India beyond his time, at the risk and, as 
it proved, at the cost of his life, in order to complete his 
task, handed over the government to Lord Canning. 



CHAPTER XXI 

{May 1856 -May 1857) 

LUCKNOW AND OUDH 

Henry Lawrence in Lucknow — Disaffection — Causes of Discontent — 
The Greased Cartridges — Mungul Pandy — Lawrence's Popu- 
larity and Influence — An Abortive Revolt — Speech to the 
People. 

OuTRAM, who had remained at Lucknow as Chief Com- 
missioner, soon broke down in health and the post became 
vacant. Sir Henry Lawrence, who had recently refused 
Lord Dalhousie's offer of Hyderabad because of ill-health, 
was attracted by the thought of the good work he might 
do in the newly-annexed province. He wrote to Lord 
Canning to express his readiness to undertake the task, 
and " the first misfortune that befell the ministry of Lord 
Canning " ^ was that the letter conveying the proposal 
arrived too late. Mr. Coverley Jackson had already been 
appointed. 

Under the new regime the classes hitherto privileged 
fared badly indeed and native susceptibility was held in 
slight regard. Mr. Jackson loved a stormy atmosphere 
and his time was largely taken up by disputations with 
his colleagues; Mr. Martin Gubbins, the Financial Com- 
missioner, was equally keen to fight, and all idea of a 
beneficent administration of Oudh seemed to have been 
abandoned in favour of a series of interminable contro- 
versies. 

Thirty-four years had passed since Henry Lawrence, the 

1 The Sepoy War,'^vo\. i. p. 7. 
234 



Lucknow and Oudh 235 

young man rejoicing in his strength, had first set foot in 
India. The dimate and the endless work had broken 
down the stalwart frame, and now, in the autumn of 1856, 
he was compelled by ill-health to ask Lord Canning for 
home leave. He had been a martyr to Arracan fever 
ever since as a youth he took part in the First Burma War, 
and had only spent a few months in England during the 
last twenty-seven years. The leave was granted, but 
before he had made his preparations for departure came 
a tempting offer from the Viceroy, who, having arrived 
at the conclusion that Mr. Jackson's reign in Oudh was 
impracticable, now asked if Sir Henry would like the 
responsibility. 

A fallen people to be raised from the dust; a sullen, 
vicious upper class to be reconciled; fifty thousand dis- 
banded levies to be settled peacefully; a discontented 
peasantry and yeomanry to be helped — here were tasks 
peculiarly suited to his genius and temperament. Might 
not the ardour of his sympathy with those who had as yet 
experienced little consideration at the hands of the English, 
and his interest in so great and difficult a work, have a 
favourable effect upon his health? He sought medical 
advice and replied that he was ready to go to Lucknow 
at a day's notice ; that though five or six distinct diseases 
had laid hold of him, and though four doctors had delivered 
the verdict that he must leave India, his own doctor, who 
knew the elasticity of his constitution, was of opinion that 
an emplo5mient into which he could throw himself with 
zest might prove beneficial. He quitted Rajputana 
towards the close of the winter of 1856-1857, his office 
there being taken by his brother George, as his place in the 
Punjab had been filled by John. The Rajputs had come 
to regard him as their champion; his courteous and 
chivalrous bearing, his benevolent, paternal guidance, and 
his sympathetic interest in their affairs had gained their 
affection, and his strength oflpurpose their respect. 



236 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

From Agra he wrote to Edwardes : 

"... You say you are sorry I am going. And so am 
I. I give up a great deal, indeed all my private desires, 
my little daughter, my sons, my sisters, and probably my 
health. But I could not withstand the offer, made as it 
was by Lord Canning; I have also the vanity to think I 
can do good. . . . Man can but die once, and if I die in 
Oude, after having saved some poor fellows' hearths, or 
skins, or izzut (reputation), I shall have no reason for 
discontent. . . . But the price I pay is high, for I had 
quite set my heart on going home." ^ 

" Dented all over with defeats and disappointments, 
honourable scars in the eyes of the bystanders," as Edwardes 
had said at an earlier date. Sir Henry Lawrence, who, 
" had fought every losing battle for the old Chiefs and 
Jaghirdars with entire disregard to his own interests," ^ 
arrived in Lucknow in March 1857. He immediately 
visited the gaols and found the sentries at the mercy of the 
prisoners. The military arrangements were equally bad, 
the troops, having been scattered over the district, would 
be unable to afford mutual support, and the magazine was 
practically unprotected. He promptly changed all this. 
Mr. Jackson, whom he was superseding, he found amiable, 
energetic, and kindly, " though I told him he was very 
wrong in some of his acts; " the masterful Martin Gubbins 
he liked and admired, though firmly opposed to his fiscal 
arrangements; and both Gubbins and Ommaney, the 
Judicial Commissioner, needed a strong man over them. 
The pohcy of the Dead Level ^ had been fatal. The 
talukdars — the large landholders of Oudh — had been 
brought down to the wretched condition of the common 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 279. 

2 Raikes, Notes on the Revolt, p. 33. 

3 The term applied by opponents to the theory of the Thomason 
School that there should be no intermediate class between the 
peasantry and the Government, 



Lucknow and Oudh 237 

people, but what benefit had accraed by the process would 
be hard to discover, for greater pains had been taken to 
punish the wrong-doer than to alleviate the sufferings of 
the victim. The peasantry had gained nothing thereby 
and, strangely enough, they were in no wise grateful to the 
oppressors of their oppressors, as the satisfaction of know- 
ing that the mighty had been put down from their seats 
had not filled the hungry with good things. 

A talukdar was nominally a revenue-contractor, author- 
ised to collect the revenue of a district and to keep what 
remained after the payment of a stipulated sum to the 
Mohammedan ruler. Some of the Oudh talukdars had 
secured this privilege by the simple process of bidding 
higher than their competitors ; others were the descendants 
of Hindu rajas, who had been granted the right over their 
former estates in order to reconcile them to the rule of the 
Mogul. The weakness and laxity of the nawabs of Oudh 
had prompted many talukdars to increase their estates, and 
at the same time their privileges, at the expense of the 
smaller proprietors and village communities, and as there 
was little check on their rapacity, they had naturally 
developed into tyrants. When Oudh was annexed no less 
than two-thirds of the province was in the hands of these 
" feudal barons." No sooner was the country brought 
under English rule than the talukdars were punished for 
their own crimes or the sins of their forefathers. Although 
they had been given to understand that for three years, 
pending inquiry, they would be permitted to remain in 
possession of all lands held at the date of annexation, 
General Outram's successor was much too impatient to 
await the result of a thorough inquiry before despoiling 
of their supposed plunder those whom he considered no 
better than robbers. Most of the talukdars, who then 
lost villages and lands, had little claim to sympathy, but 
there is no doubt that others suffered mainly on account 

Q 



238 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

of the bad name of their class. The whole aristocracy of 
Oudh was treated harshly; pensions and allowances that 
had been promised were withheld, and many nobles and 
ladies of the court were brought to a pitiable state of 
destitution. 

Had Lord Dalhousie remained in India he would have 
secured obedience to his orders and fulfilment of his pledges ; 
but Lord Canning, being new to India, was naturally 
reluctant to overrule an administrator of experience, 
though he repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. 
Jackson's methods. 

When Sir Henry arrived in Lucknow the talukdars 
were openly disaffected. To retrieve the errors of his 
predecessor and efface the consequences of half a century 
of misrule was humanly impossible of accompHshment in 
the six weeks during which he governed the province. 
But he achieved more than might have been deemed 
possible. The condition of the peasantry had first to be 
improved, but he did not set about the task by stripping 
the talukdars of the little that remained to them. These 
were given opportunities to lay their cases before him in 
durbar and in private, and Mr. Gubbins has said that 
" all returned satisfied and hopeful, aU congratulated 
themselves on having found a ruler so well disposed to 
listen to their grievances and remedy them." They had, 
however, no reason to hope that the S5nnpathetic Chief 
Commissioner would condone wrong-doing or that he would 
permit them to retain any land of which they had taken 
unlawful possession, but they appreciated his sympathy 
and his consideration. Though time did not permit him to 
review the whole number of cases, he was able to remedy 
several instances of injustice, and the hostility of the 
talukdars seemed likely to abate. Before many months 
had passed English refugees had reason to be thankful 
that Henry Lawrence had tempered justice with charity. 



Lucknow and Oudh 239 

For though the great majority of the talukdars joined 
forces with the mutineers, they acted with greater modera- 
ion than they would have done had they still regarded all 
Englishmen as enemies. When the Englishwomen of the 
province — wives and daughters of the official instruments 
of their humiliation — were refugees in their domains, 
absolutely at their mercy, the talukdars, with one or two 
exceptions, connived at their escape. 

After the Mutiny a reaction set in strongly in favour of 
the talukdars, who were then established as proprietors of 
estates to which even they had hardly dared to lay claim, 
and it was John Lawrence who, nearly ten years later, 
restored to the ryot and petty zamindar of Oudh some few 
of the rights they had lost while the talukdars were a 
petted class. Here was an instance of the harm wrought 
by that type of reforming zeal which concentrates its 
energy upon the punishing of the oppressor rather than 
upon making amends to the oppressed. It is probable 
that if Henry Lawrence, the chief opponent of the Dead 
Level policy, had been sent to Oudh when the influence 
of the Thomason School was at its height, the abuses of the 
talukdar system would have been rectified and the privi- 
leges of the talukdars curtailed so judiciously that there 
would have been no excuse for their subsequent petting 
as an ill-used class; and therefore John Lawrence — the 
most distinguished of that school — would not have been 
called upon to confirm the talukdars in the greater part of 
their unjustly acquired possessions in order to restore a 
portion to the original owners. 

Sir John Kaye has described how Sir Henry's eyes were 
opened to the wide-spread discontent prevailing among 
the sepoys, and his mind to an apprehension of coming 
trouble. Long ago he had perceived the danger, but had 
not foreseen its imminence. He now sought the opinions 
of many of the more intelligent sepoys and native officers, 



240 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

and warned Lord Canning that the Bengal Army, in- 
fluenced by hatred or by blind panic, was prepared to 
accept any rumour, however wild, of the intentions of the 
English to put aside native rule, to convert forcibly or 
fraudulently to Christianity, to ignore all native sentiment, 
prejudice, and tradition, and, in fact, to paint the brown 
man white. Many who had served the Government 
faithfully were filled by a vague dread that, in spite of their 
own officers whom they loved and held guiltless, and in 
spite of their confidence in many of the British officials, the 
Supreme Government had determined sooner or later, if 
one means failed then by another, to destroy their caste 
and all that they held dear. Argument was unavailing. 
Even those who had not lost their heads, who might be 
convinced that their fears were groundless, were afraid 
of their comrades. By confiding in the good intentions 
of the English they would lose their caste, their most 
precious possession, and their loyalty would be their social 
ruin. If friends, parents, brethren, should refuse to eat 
or drink or hold intercourse with them, what satisfaction 
would they derive from the approbation of the alien ? 

Why then were no precautions taken? Why was the 
whole land from Delhi to Calcutta given over to the sepoy, 
and Bengal, Oudh, and the North- West Provinces denuded 
of British regiments? The fault did not lie with him 
whom men most truly addressed as " the most noble the 
Governor-General." The proofs of fidelity given under 
most trying conditions, and the complacent self-assurance 
that British control must be appreciated by the natives 
because it had brought peace, encouraged industry and 
commerce, and manifestly attempted to secure justice — 
these reflections were a flattering unction to the soul, and 
they supply the answer. The loyalty of the native troops 
to their salt had passed into a proverb, and the officers, 
whom they had followed to victory after victory, would 



Lucknow and Oudh 



241 



not believe that their " children " could turn against them. 
When wounded they had been tended by their brown- 
skinned warriors with a gentleness that could not be 
exceeded. They had watched with quiet pleasure the 
simple delight of the native soldiers in making happy the 
children of their sahibs, and the affection existing between 
the sepoys and the little ones. Unable to follow the 
seemingly inconsistent workings of the Asiatic mind, they 
were content blindly to accept them as evidences of the 
intellectual inferiority of the Indian peoples; and they 
knew that, whereas the Company's white soldiers had 
more than once shown dangerous symptoms, the out- 
breaks of the sepoy had hitherto resembled the naughtiness 
of a child, who injures himself more than others. The 
Company's officers had many virtues, but genius was no 
more common among them than elsewhere; they over- 
looked the fact that a passive acquiescence is the most 
favourable sentiment that the rule of the alien is likely to 
inspire ; that the gulf between the races is not to be bridged 
over while they cannot eat and drink together, nor inter- 
marry ; and as to English justice — in the words of Herbert 
Edwardes — " is there any such frightful bore in the world 
as your Aristides? " So the incendiary fires and similar 
warnings were treated as childish outbursts that would 
soon run their course. 

The disproportion between native and European soldiers 
has been given as the main cause of the Mutiny, but this 
statement is no more than a half-truth. It is true that 
without such disproportion there might have been no 
rising; it was the factor that gave hope of success and 
placed temptation before the sepoys, and, perhaps, even 
made a mutiny inevitable. But " the matter of seditions 
is of two kinds, much poverty and much discontentment. 
It is certain so many overthrown estates, so many votes 
for troubles. . . . The causes and motives of seditions are, 



242 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

innovations in religion, taxes, alterations of laws and 
customs, breaking of privileges, general oppression, ad- 
vancement of unworthy persons, strangers, dearths, dis- 
banded soldiers, factions grown desperate ; and whatsoever 
in offending people, joineth and knitteth them in a common 
cause." ^ 

That Oudh, the home of the sepoys, and certain of the 
Mahratta states were disaffected, and that India in general 
was uneasy and therefore liable to panic, has been shown. 
The fine qualities of some of the best men of the new school 
of administrators were shorn of much of their virtue by a 
lack of sympathetic insight. The landed proprietors — the 
class with whom they had dealt most hardly — were the 
most powerful of the natives, and their influence had not 
been recognised by the advocates of an English standard 
of reform. Alongside those who had already been dis- 
possessed of their estates, the nobles that went in fear 
lest their turn should come swiftly would surely range 
themselves. 

There were also Brahman intriguers at work, chief of 
whom was Dundu Pant, of Bithur ; there were Mohammedans 
who dreamt of a new Mogul Empire rising from the ashes 
of the old Delhi dynasty ; and the Moslem king and court 
of Oudh were intent on revenge. There was discontent 
in an army that had little to offer to the ambitious. In 
the native armies of bygone days each sepoy carried in his 
knapsack the baton of a field-marshal; the trooper who 
possessed a good horse, a sharp sword, and a strong arm, 
might carve his way to empire. Without going back to 
times remote, what had been Ran jit Singh's start in life, 
and who were Scindia and Holkar? Henry Lawrence 
had pointed out again and again that though the Company 
provided a career satisfactory to nine out of ten native 
officers, the capable tenth man was not content with a 
1 Bacon, Of Seditions and Troubles. 



Lucknow and Oudh 243 

position which must always be inferior to that of the 
EngHsh subaltern. 

The sepoys were now clothed, accoutred, and drilled 
after the European model. They were compelled to wear 
a head dress abominated by Mussulman and Hindu, alike ; 
the Brahmans were forbidden to wear the cherished caste- 
mark on their foreheads ; the ear-rings, which were regarded 
as charms against evil spirits, were no longer permitted; 
the Mohammedans were deprived of the beards of which 
they had been so proud; and in other ways native senti- 
ment had been impatiently ignored by Englishmen who 
could not understand that customs, which to them appeared 
most childish, could be so dear to the hearts of the sepoys. 

The extension of the Company's dominions to Burma 
and Pegu had given further cause of complaint. The 
Hindu sepoys are attached to their homes, and service 
beyond the seas is most distasteful. No increase of pay 
could compensate for the homesickness and the loss of 
caste involved by crossing the " black water." Biding 
their time the crafty Brahmans and ambitious schemers 
watched the growing restiveness with satisfaction. The 
native soldiers were patient and long-suffering ; they were 
attached to their officers, to their regiments, and to their 
profession. The pay was good; the pension was sure; 
and the hour was not yet ripe for mutiny. But the 
Asiatic can wait. 

And suddenly the chance came. The authorities placed 
in the hands of the intriguers a weapon more potent for 
evil than any their own invention was likely to devise. 
" It was so terrible a thing, that if the most malignant 
enemies of the British Government had sat in conclave 
for years and brought an excess of devilish ingenuity to 
bear," ^ they could have produced nothing better calculated 
to implant blind terror in the breasts of the sepoys and, 
1 The Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 490. 



244 'T^^ Lawrences of the Punjab 

by offending Hindu and Mohammedan alike, to drive them 
coupled to desperation. 

" If there be fuel prepared, it is hard to teU whence the 
spark shall come that shall set it on fire." ^ The new rifled 
muskets had recently superseded the old Brown Bess, and 
the sepoys were loud in their praise of the paternal Govern- 
ment which had given them a firearm with a range more 
than double that of the muskets of any probable enemy. 
" But unhappily, these rifled barrels could not be loaded 
without the lubrication of the cartridge. And the voice 
of joy and praise was suddenly changed into a wild cry of 
grief and despair when it was bruited abroad that the 
cartridge, the end of which was to be bitten off by the 
sepoy, was greased with the fat of the detested swine of 
the Mohammedan, or the venerated cow of the Hindu." ^ 

The tidings flashed from cantonment to cantonment in 
that mysterious fashion peculiar to India. The fiat had 
gone forth — so ran the rumour — that the barriers of caste 
were to be broken down and that the Mussulman was to be 
rendered unclean, in the expectation that when the sepoys 
had defiled their lips with the accursed thing and so had 
forfeited all hope of future bliss they would turn to the 
refuge offered by the Christian religion. Regiment after 
regiment refused to bite the cartridge ; the officers reasoned 
with their men — some threatened them; the sepoys were 
told that mutton-fat only had been used, and were given 
permission to make their own lubrication of beeswax and 
ghee. But no argument could convince them that the 
cartridges were innocent of offence — the more so that a 
small quantity of beef-fat had through carelessness been 
used. A panic had seized them and all concessions were 
regarded as evidence that, this trap having been laid bare, 
the English were ready to give way, make a show of con- 

^ Bacon, Of Seditions and Troubles. 
~ The Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 489. 



Lucknow and Oudh 245 

ciliation — and invent another scheme wherewith to effect 
their purpose. If permission was given to use their own 
materials, said the Brahmans, it was because the ghee had 
been defiled. They were also told — and credulity went 
hand in hand with fear — that ground bullock-bones had 
been mixed with the flour served out to the troops. Those 
sepoys who, in ignorance, or because they trusted their 
officers, had bitten the cartridges found themselves out- 
casts. Their comrades, even their brethren, would no 
longer eat or drink or smoke with them, and what such 
living death means to the twice-born Hindu no European 
can conceive. No wonder that the victims hated the 
unclean aliens who had brought them to this pass. The 
sepoys are like sheep, said a rebel officer to Henry Lawrence, 
" the leading one tumbles down, and all the rest roll over 
him." At Barrackpore, near Calcutta, on March 29, 1857, 
Mungul Pandy fired the opening shot of the Sepoy War 
and endowed the mutineers with a new name. 

A month of excitement and anxiety followed the 
execution of the first pandy. From the Indus to the 
Hughli the glare of incendiary fires chased sleep from the 
eyes of the white men. Yet the regiments did not break 
loose and the outnumbered English clung to the hope 
that the trouble would pass. 

During the month of April Sir Henry Lawrence, who had 
seven hundred British soldiers in Lucknow to hold in check 
8000 sepoys backed by twice that number of the nawab's 
disbanded troops, prepared to meet the crisis. He spoke 
reassuringly to the sepoys, and, to some extent, succeeded 
in calming their excitement. He held durbars to which 
the Oudh chieftains came in force, and there he gave 
counsel to the wavering and encouragement to the loyally- 
disposed. He reminded the assemblies that under English 
rule no sect had ever been persecuted ; to the Mussulman 
he pointed out that in the Punjab the Sikh yoke had been 



246 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

removed, and that in the cities of the Manjha the muezzin 
again summoned the faithful to prayer; he asked the 
Hindu if his lot had not been made more easy in the 
Mohammedan states. Though the panic had struck its 
roots too deep to be easily removed, and though Lucknow 
was the seat of disaffection, the personal magnetism of 
the speaker was not unavailing; the outbreak there was 
delayed and its potency for harm diminished. 

But while he kept a cheerful face, showed little sign of 
depression and anxiety, and appeared to hope for the best, 
he was quietly anticipating and preparing for the worst. 
With his finger-tip on the pulse of disaffection he disarmed 
one corps before it could strike, and schemed — and 
partially succeeded — to commit sepoys of the other regi- 
ments to the English side. Dundu Pant, v/ho visited 
Lucknow about this time — with what fell design may be 
guessed — he received with his accustomed courtesy, but 
he warned General Wheeler at Cawnpore unavailingly 
against the arch-traitor who professed such attachment 
to English men and English ways. Without alarming or 
exasperating the poorheahs he segregated the few score 
Sikhs and a number of selected Hindus and Mohammedans 
from the various corps, and resolved to rely upon them — 
the " dark faces . . . faithful and few," of Tennyson's ballad 
— as upon the white men of the 32nd. Some of the Sikhs 
had probably seen him in the old days ; they all knew his 
reputation, and the ikbal of Henry Lawrence was no light 
thing to the followers of Govind; and even with the 
poorheahs his popularity had grown so rapidly that it 
proved sufficient to keep many sepoys and talukdars loyal 
personally to himself though their hearts were with their 
comrades. " They had a saying," wrote Colonel Wilson,^ 
" that when Sir Henry looked twice up to heaven and 
once down to earth, and then stroked his beard, he knew 
what to do." 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 311. 



Lucknow and Oudh 247 

In the same memorandum Colonel Wilson says: 
" Although he had been so short a tme at Lucknow, he 
had taken a wonderful hold of the respect and love of the 
European soldiery. One day before the siege Sir Henry 
had ordered all the garrison to repair to the posts they 
would have to occupy in the event of an attack. He then 
went round to see them in their places. On approaching 
the main body of her Majesty's 32nd, the men raised a 
tremendous cheer. Sir Henry asked Colonel Inglis why 
he had made them do this. Colonel Inglis said he had 
nothing to do with it except trying to stop it. The men 
had broken out into cheers quite spontaneously. . . . 
There was a paper published in Lucknow. One day the 
editor wrote a very mischievous article against Govern- 
ment, and Sir Henry sent for him and warned him that if 
he wrote again to excite the natives, he would suppress the 
paper. Soon after this Sir Henry was riding by the house 
where the paper was edited, and seeing the name up, said 
to his staff, ' Let us go in and edit the paper for Mr. K.' 
Going in he said, ' Mr. K., to show you I bear you no ill- 
will, I am come to write you a leading article.' He then 
made the staff sit down, and gave Mr. K. all the military 
views of the day, while he himself dashed off a rapid 
review of all the resources at the command of Government 
for meeting and putting down the mutiny. The article 
did a great deal of good at the time." 

The first symptom of active disloyalty in the Lucknow 
district was displayed on the morning of Sunday, May 3, 
by the 7th Oudh Irregular Infantry, stationed at Musa 
Bagh, a suburb some miles to the north-west of the 
Residency. But though they seized their arms, took 
possession of the magazine, and loudly announced their 
determination to murder all their officers, these sepoys of 
the 7th, though ripe for any mischief if not attended by 
much risk, proved themselves to be but blustering traitors. 



248 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Cowed by the resolution of their officers they returned to 
their quarters, and in the evening Sir Henry ordered the 
regiment to parade. As the sepoys fell in, they heard the 
distant tramp of men and horses and the rattle and clank 
of the guns, and before they had realised its import the 
European artillery and infantry and the irregular cavalry 
were within striking distance. Some few fled and were 
captured; the majority laid down their arms, were placed 
under arrest, and the troops marched back to cantonments. 
A few days later Sir Henry summoned the chief men of 
the district, the native officers, and a proportion of sepoys 
from each corps to a durbar in the grounds of the Resi- 
dency to witness, not the punishment of the rebels, but 
the rewards conferred upon loyalty. 

"Soldiers!" he said, "Soldiers! some persons are 
abroad spreading reports that the Government desire to 
interfere with the religion of their soldiers; you all know 
this to be a transparent falsehood; you, and your fore- 
fathers before you, well know and knew that for more than 
a hundred years the religion of your countrjonen has 
never been interfered with." He reminded the assembly 
that for many centuries India had had no experience of 
such religious toleration as came with English rule, and 
after warning them of the might of England, he appealed 
to their esprit de corps. " All governments employ and 
cherish the faithful and the zealous, and punish the luke- 
warm and ungrateful. No army in the world has done 
better service than that of Bengal. I am a witness to this 
fact; so are these gallant officers. Brigadiers Handscombe 
and Gray, Colonels Halford and Palmer, and many, many 
officers now present, who have led you to victory, fought 
at your head, and bled in your ranks — whose well-earned 
decorations attest your bravery, and which are the proud 
records of many a well-contested field won by your valour, 
your discipline, your intrepidity. Many, like myself. 



Lucknow and Oudh 249 

have grown grey in your company; have been associated 
with you from our boyhood ; have shared in your campaigns ; 
have participated in all your dangers, privations, and 
triumphs, in camp and in quarters — from the swamps of 
Burmah to the snows of Bamean. We are all your friends 
— our interests are inseparable ; if your faces are blackened, 
so are ours ; if any dishonour befalls you do we not suffer ? 
Let there be no lukewarmness. . . . The guilt of many has 
been that they simply looked on at the vile wickedness of 
a few. 

" Take warning! Now turn to these good and faithful 
soldiers — Subahdar Sewak Tewaree, Havildar Heera Lall 
Doobee, Ramnath Doobee, Sepahee of the 48th N. I,, 
and to Hosein Buksh, of the 13th Regiment, who have set 
to you all a good example. The three first at once arrested 
the bearer of a seditious letter, and brought the whole 
circumstances to the notice of superior authority. You 
know well what the consequences were: and what has 
befallen the 7th Oudh Irregular Infantry. Look at Hosein 
Buksh of the 13th, fine fellow as he is. Is he not a good 
and faithful soldier? — did he not seize three villains, who 
are now in confinement and awaiting their doom? It is 
to reward such fidelity, such acts and deeds as I have 
mentioned, and of which you are all well aware, that I have 
called you all together this day, to assure you that those 
who are faithful and true to their salt will always be amply 
rewarded and well cared for; that the great Government 
which we all serve is prompt to reward, swift to punish, 
vigilant, anxious, eager to protect its faithful subjects ; 
but firm, determined, resolute, to crush all who may have 
the temerity to rouse its vengeance. Think well of what 
I have said; reflect on what has passed; listen to your 
elders and seniors, who have served the Government for 
nearly half a century, and you must be satisfied that 
the Government which you serve has never attempted 



250 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

to influence in any way, underhand or otherwise, the 
religious convictions of its subjects or soldiers; that it 
freely permits all to worship at the altar before which their 
forefathers have bowed — but that, whilst allowing the 
fullest, freest religious liberty to all, it will vigorously 
exact that legitimate duty from its army, without which 
discipline cannot exist; that under no circumstances 
whatever will it listen to, or reason with, mutineers or 
armed mobs; and should — which God forbid! — any mis- 
guided men, dupes of fools and knaves, attempt to follow 
in the footsteps of the 19th and 34th, rest assured that 
Government, all-powerful and irresistible, is not only 
prepared and capable, but will lose no time in inflicting 
such punishment as shall not easily pass away from the 
recollection of man. And now, soldiers ! it is my pleasing 
duty to reward, in the name of Government, those who 
have served it so well and so honourably." ^ 

The speech made a deep impression upon the minds of 
the talukdars and of many of the comrades of the fortunate 
sepoys of the 48th and 13th whom Sir Henry next addressed : 

"Advance, Subahdar Sewak Tewaree; come forward, 
Havildar and soldiers, and receive these splendid gifts 
from the Government which is proud to number you 
among its soldiers; accept these honorary sabres — you 
have won them well, long may you live to wear them in 
honour. Take these sums of money for your families 
and relatives; wear these robes of honour at your homes 
and at your festivals ; and may the bright example which 
you have so conspicuously set, find, as it doubtless will, 
followers in every regiment and company in the army! " 

^ Cave-Browne's Punjab and Delhi, p. 32. 



THE PUNJAB 

IN 18JO 




15 A J P UTAM A 



Scale kjj - ^^maii! ' - 4zMdef. 



CHAPTER XXII 

{May -August 1857) 

THE MUTINY 

The Outbreak at Meerut — Bahadur Shah proclaimed Emperor — 
John Lawrence's prompt Action — Lord Canning and the 
Lawrences — State of the Punjab — ^Loyalty of the Cis-Sutlej 
Princes — Corbett and Montgomery at Lahore — The Movable 
Column — " King John " — Jalandar — Multan — A " Master- 
stroke " at Peshawar — Becher — The Punjab Army before 
Delhi — Proposed Abandonment of Peshawar — Jhelum — 
Sialkot — Lawrence sends Nicholson to take Delhi. 

John Lawrence " was emphatically a man without a 
weakness ... of adamantine strength that would neither 
bend nor break. . . . Men said that he had no sentiment, 
no romance . . . but there was an intense reality about him 
such as I have never seen equalled. He seemed to be 
continually toiling onwards, upwards, as if life were not 
meant for repose, with the grand princely motto ' / serve ' 
inscribed in characters of light on his forehead. He served 
God as unceasingly as he served the state ; and set before 
all his countrymen in the Punjab the true pattern of a 
Christian gentleman." ^ 

He was to be put to a test that would search out every 
weakness; and failure to endure would bring with it the 
downfall of the English in Asia. Hitherto he had been 
found equal to every emergency: the administration of 
the Punjab had been the greatest work ever accomplished 
in a conquered land. Now the day of England's supreme 
1 Kaye, The Sepoy War, vol. i. pp. 64-65. 
251 



252 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

need in India had dawned; the storm had burst, and he 
that would face it, and neither bend nor break, must 
indeed be of adamantine strength. 

In Delhi, the political capital of Hindustan, John 
Lawrence the youth had given the first proofs of his ability ; 
it was here that his matured genius was to have full play. 
The degenerate House of Timur, saved by the British 
from being trampled under the feet of Hindu feudatories, 
had been permitted to retain the imperial title, but with 
no substantive power beyond the walls of the palace. In 
the year 1857 Bahadur Shah, the last representative of the 
Mogul line, was an old man, infirm, without ambition, a 
poetaster, and not of the fibre of which leaders of lost 
causes are made. 

To sixty millions of Mohammedans in India and beyond 
the borders Bahadur Shah was nevertheless the symbol 
of ancient Moslem glory ; and tradition had imposed upon 
double that number of Hindus a recognition of the divine 
right of the Mogul to possess the land. The dangers of 
this anomaly — a king in name, wielding no kingly power, 
exercising none of the functions of his office, yet enshrined 
the more securely in the hearts of a conservative people 
because, by granting the title, the English had tacitly 
admitted the divine right — had not been ignored, and a 
decree had been issued that, after his death, the title must 
lapse. In deference to the titular dignity, and as a con- 
cession to native sentiment, no other troops had been 
quartered in Delhi than a small guard for the Arsenal 
wherein was stored India's chief supply of munitions of 
war. On and below the Ridge, a mile beyond the western 
walls, half a dozen native regiments were stationed; and 
the nearest English troops were at Meerut some fifty miles 
to the north-east. Meerut was the largest cantonment 
in India, and as it contained the greatest proportion of 
British troops of all branches of the service, little fear 



The Mutiny 253 

of an outbreak was entertained. The white force was 
sufficient to crush a rising at its inception, and no expecta- 
tion of success could encourage the sepoys there to make 
a bid for empire. 

John Lawrence was at Rawul Pindi, on his way to the 
hills, when a telegram from Delhi was brought to him. 
" The sepoys have come in from Meerut and are burning 
everything. . . . We must shut up." Bahadur Shah had 
been acclaimed Emperor of Hindustan. 

In silence he went into his room, and when he emerged 
he was armed against the danger; he had resolved upon 
the outlines of that policy which, by the great-hearted 
subordination of the Punjab's interests to those of India, 
succeeded in securing both. The full significance of the 
news was not hidden from him. Though he underestimated 
the military value of the rebel success, he clearly discerned 
how potent would be the glamour of the Mogul name, 
when acclaimed by the sepoys and the populace of the 
capital. While he prepared for the worst he hoped to 
learn on the morrow that the extent of the disaster had 
been exaggerated and that the British cavalry and the 
galloper guns had entered Delhi on the heels of the mutineers 
and had brought the city to its senses. He asked himself 
how the rebels could have been allowed to reach Delhi; 
why they had not been swept away by the guns ? where 
were the Carabineers? and had the 6oth Rifles made 
common cause with the sepoys? 

The story of muddle and incapacity at Meerut is still 
painful to contemplate. The sepoys had mutinied against 
their better judgment — from the point of view of policy, 
not of ethics — urged thereto by the taunts of courtesans 
of the bazaar. Having committed themselves, dread of 
the consequences drove them to desperation; they set 
fire to the English bungalows and murdered the white 
population, and when the European regiments were sent 



254 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

for, the 6oth Rifles lacked ball-cartridge, the artillery- 
were short of guns, the Carabineers had only half the 
number of horses they needed, and many of the troopers 
were recruits who could not ride. To complete the muddle 
the Carabineer officer deliberately called over the roll of 
his corps when he should have been leading a gallop to 
the English quarter of the town. Night had fallen before 
the brigade was ready to pursue ; the sepoys, amazed that 
they still lived, were in full flight towards Delhi; and 
the general in command did not know which way they had 
taken. He might have guessed. There was only one road 
along which they were likely to go ; yet he chose to keep 
his troops in Meerut to protect what remained of the 
station from the ravages of the budmashes and released 
gaol-birds, a duty for which one-third of his force would 
have sufficed. 

Straining their ears to catch the sound of pursuing hoofs 
and shuddering as Fancy played her tricks upon them, 
the rebels continued their flight throughout the night, 
and arrived before the gates of Delhi after sunrise. Per- 
mission to enter was at first refused, but the sepoys con- 
trived to get inside, and as the amazing news ran through 
the city the populace was divided between fear and delight. 
Delhi did not straightway make common cause with the 
murderers, but as the hours passed and the look-outs on 
the towers could see no sign of the avengers from Meerut, 
Bahadur Shah was proclaimed Emperor of Hind. The 
British officers, women, and children, to the number of 
fifty, were put to death, the Arsenal guard mutinied, and 
after a gallant attempt on the part of its English officers 
and non-commissioned officers to hold out until the 
Carabineers and the Horse Artillery should arrive. Lieu- 
tenant Willoughby and his glorious eight blew up the 
huge magazine, and Delhi was lost to the British. 

The sepoys below the Ridge did not join the mutineers 



The Mutiny 255 

at once. They also waited, fearfully, until certain that 
no move was being made from Meerut — Oh, for an hour 
of John Nicholson! — and then the six regiments enrolled 
themselves under the banner of the Mogul. 

" Native troops in open mutiny — cantonment south of 
nullah burnt — several European officers killed — European 
troops defending barracks." Such was the telegram sent 
to the Commander-in-Chief by the officer commanding at 
Meerut, and no strictures upon his failure to grasp the 
situation could be more damning than his own words. 
Truly, General Hewitt was unable to see the forest for the 
trees. ^ 

What a contrast to this incapacity was the grasp and 
insight of Lord Canning and his chief lieutenants! The 
Governor-General no sooner heard the news than he under- 
stood its import — that the loss of Delhi, unless quickly 
retrieved, might mean the loss of India. He telegraphed 
to John Lawrence to send troops from the Punjab to the 
Mogul capital; and his message was crossed by one from 
the Chief Commissioner, informing him that, as Delhi 
must be captured, he was taking upon himself the re- 
sponsibility of sending some Punjab regiments down. 

Henry Lawrence had the same broad views. He could 

^ In the year 1843, when Resident in Nepal, Henry Lawrence, in 
a paper on the Necessity of Chronic Readiness for War, liad foretold 
what would happen in case of an outbreak at Delhi, with which 
the British were not prepared to deal without a moment's delay. 
" Does any sane man doubt," he asked, " that twenty-four hours 
would swell the hundreds of rebels into thousands; and that if 
such conduct on our part lasted for a week, every ploughshare in 
the Delhi States would be turned into a sword? . . . We should 
then be literally striking for our existence, at the most inclement 
season of the year, with the prestige of our name vanished. . . . 
But the parallel does not end here. Suppose the officer command- 
ing at Meerut, when called on for help, were to reply, ' My force is 
chiefly cavalry and horse-artillery, and not the sort to be effective 
within a walled town, where every house is a castle. Besides. 
Meerut itself, at all times unquiet, is even now in rebellion, and I 
cannot spare my troops.' " 



256 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

depend on 700 white soldiers to hold Lucknow against the 
assaults of 50,000 fighting-men, but his message was not, 
" Send me help or all will be lost," but, " Delhi must be 
re-captured; it is more important than all else." 

An Indian force under Outram had been sent to Persia, 
and an army from England was on the sea, on its way to 
China. Canning recalled Outram 's regiments and, though 
he had no authority over the China Expedition, he, with 
a great man's readiness to accept responsibility, sent to 
intercept the fleet, and was just in time. He had decided 
upon this step when the telegraph brought Sir Henry 
Lawrence's advice to " Get every European you can from 
China, Ceylon, and elsewhere; also all the Gurkhas from 
the hills," and his request, " Give me plenary military 
power in Oudh; I will not use it unnecessarily." Not a 
moment was lost before flashing back the inspiriting reply, 
" You have full military powers : the Governor-General 
will support you in everything you think necessary." 
Almost at the same time came the suggestion from John 
that the China and Persia forces should be sent for, and the 
request that he might raise Punjabi levies and make use 
of the Sikh rajas of the Cis-Sutlej and Trans-Sutlej States; 
and Canning's reply was in similarly appreciative terms. 

Sir Henry also asked permission to enlist the aid of Jung 
Bahadur, his acquaintance of the murderous Nepal dur- 
bar, an ardent soldier who might be glad of the chance 
to " blood " his quaint army against the pan dies in the 
disturbed districts contiguous to the Nepal frontier. 
Canning replied: " I cannot express the satisfaction I 
feel in having you in Oudh. You have got authority to 
ask Jung Bahadur for his Gurkhas. It is most unpalatable 
to me to give it, and to you, probably, to receive it. It 
is a humiliating confession of our weakness." 

The weakness, however, was already too apparent. 
Jung Bahadur, Gulab Singh, Dost Mohammed, all knew that 



The Mutiny 257 

along a stretch of some hundreds of miles through the 
richest provinces of Hindustan hardly a white regiment 
was to be found. 

The comprehensive glance of the Governor-General 
swept the land from Peshawar to Calcutta, from Kashmir 
to Ceylon. He perceived that the chief elements of danger 
lay in Oudh and the Punjab ; that the former was the more 
likely to go against the English, the latter the more power- 
ful for good or ill. The Punjab had by far the larger 
garrison of British troops, and from it Delhi must be 
retaken. But, if the Europeans were withdrawn from the 
frontier where they held the tribesmen in check, the 
Pathans would probably sink their blood-feuds and sweep 
through the passes to help drive the whites into the sea. 
If the Punjab Irregulars should join the poorbeahs, the 
British garrison would be overwhelmed; if the peasants 
should be induced to rise against the dominant race, the 
Khalsa would once more become a terrible reality. For 
in the Punjab, unlike the other provinces, the cultivators 
were all fighting-men. 

1 " But if there were much trouble and anxiety in these 
thoughts, they had their attendant consolations. Let 
what might happen in Oudh and the Punjab, the Law- 
rences were there. The Governor-General had abundant 
faith in them both ; faith in their courage, their constancy, 
their capacity for command; but most of all he trusted 
them because they coveted responsibility. It is only from 
an innate sense of strength that this desire proceeds; 
only in obedience to the unerring voice of Nature that 
strong men press forward to grasp what weak men shrink 
from possessing." 

As the mutiny spread the Punjab was gradually cut off, 
and Sir John Lawrence was no longer able to communicate 
freely with the Governor-General. He was responsible 
^ The Sepoy War, vol. i. p. 613. 



258 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

for his own province and his first duty was to hold it safe. 
The Punjab garrison consisted, on May 12, of some 60,000 
men, of whom 10,000 were Europeans, 36,000 poorbeahs 
of the Regular Army, and 14,000 Punjab Irregulars. The 
white regiments were mainly stationed in two districts, 
the Peshawar Valley and the Sutlej frontier, at the eastern 
and western extremities of the province; the irregulars 
were scattered along the Afghan frontier. If the latter 
stood loyal the poorbeahs could be held in check ; if they 
preferred to play for their own hands, the people would 
rise and the province would be lost. The arrogance of 
the poorbeahs towards the vanquished soldiers of the 
Khalsa had made them hated ; it was the harder to bear in- 
somuch that the Punjabi believed himself the better man, 
and John Lawrence hoped that the temptation to prove 
this might be the means of saving his province. Another 
ground for hope— outside the Lawrence influence — must 
in fairness be set down. The last three harvests in the 
Punjab had been exceptionally heavy, and the years of 
plenty do not foster rebellion. 

But he was not content to secure his own charge; he 
intended to save India. Without a day's unnecessary 
delay he sent the Guides from Mardan in the extreme 
North- West on their seven hundred miles' march to Delhi. 
After them went the ist Punjabis (Coke's Afridis), the 4th 
Sikhs, and the 4th Punjab Infantry. Doubt of the wisdom 
of this frontier-denuding policy was expressed : the tribes- 
men might be unable to resist the temptation. " Take the 
initiative," was, in effect, the answer of John Lawrence. 
" Don't wait to be attacked. Show confidence in your- 
selves and the Oriental will feel confidence in your 
strength." 

His next move was to reduce the odds by locking up a 
number of sepoys where they could do no harm. Several 
of the regiments that had given evidence of disaffection 



The Mutiny 259 

he split into detachments and sent across the Indus to 
take the place of the irregulars. Had they mutinied in 
the detestable Pathan country they would have been as 
sheep among wolves. 

Communication with Simla was still open and the Head 
of the Punjab chafed at the delay, and on May 13 he 
urged the Commander-in-Chief to take immediate action 
before Delhi. " I make no apology for writing to your 
Excellency plainly and fully," he said. " I consider this 
to be the greatest crisis which has ever occurred in India. 
Our European force is so small that, unless effectively 
handled in the outset, and brought to bear, it will prove 
unequal to the emergency. But with vigour and prompti- 
tude, under the blessing of God, it will be irresistible." ^ 

To the same, May 21, 1857. 

"... We are doing all we can to strengthen ourselves, 
and to reinforce you either by direct or indirect means. 
But can your Excellency suppose, for one moment, that 
the Irregular troops will remain staunch, if they see our 
European soldiers cooped up in their cantonments, tamely 
awaiting the progress of events? . . . Pray only reflect 
on the whole history of India. Where have we failed 
when we acted vigorously? Where have we succeeded 
when guided by timid counsels? Clive with 1200 men 
fought at Plassey, in opposition to the advice of his leading 
officers, beat 40,000 men and conquered Bengal. . . . 
Look at the Cabul catastrophe. It might have been 
averted by resolute and bold action. . . . How can it be 
supposed that strangers and mercenaries will sacrifice 
everything for us ? There is a point up to which they will 
stand by us ; for they know that we have always been 
eventually successful, and that we are good masters. 
But, go beyond this point, and every man will look to his 
immediate benefit, his present safety. 

^ Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 481, 



26o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

" The Punjab Irregulars are marching down in the 
highest spirits, proud to be trusted, and, eager to show 
their superiority over the regular troops, ready to fight 
shoulder to shoulder with the Europeans. But if, on 
their arrival, they find the Europeans behind breast-works, 
they will begin to think that the game is up. Recollect 
that all this time, while we are pausing, the emissaries 
of the mutineers are writing to and visiting every canton- 
ment. 

" It seems to me lamentable to think that in no case 
have the mutineers yet suffered. ... I cannot compre- 
hend what the Commissariat can mean by requiring from 
sixteen to twenty days to procure provisions! I am 
persuaded that all you can require to take with you must 
be procurable in two or three. . . ." ^ 

General Anson was an honoured and zealous soldier, 
though not a Nicholson to brush aside obstacles which, 
viewed through the distorting mist of doubt and diffidence, 
appeared too great to be moved. He did not resent the 
advice of the civilian, but welcomed and invited it, and 
even stated that he would rather trust to the views of the 
Punjab Chief Commissioner than to his own experience. 
But Lawrence was impatient at the inability of the military 
authorities to rise to the occasion. He remembered his 
first commission from a Governor-General, and how, at 
the beginning of the First Sikh War, he had collected 
draught animals and carts by the thousand in the space 
of a few days when the Commissary-General had stated 
that he would require as may weeks. 

He asked the Sikh chieftains of the Protected States 
to show their gratitude to the Power that had saved them 
from Ranjit Singh, and Patiala, Jhind, Nabha, and 
Kapurthala drew their swords and unlocked their treasuries, 
and placed both at his service. Their troops patrolled the 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. i. pp. 493-495. 



The Mutiny 261 

Grand Trunk Road, kept open the communications between 
Delhi and Lahore, and escorted through their territories 
the supphes for the besieging force. Jhind, indeed, was 
the first man, native or European, to strike the mutineers. 
" I am not fond of native chiefs," Lawrence v\TOte to Lord 
Canning, a month later, " but I am bound to say that these 
two [Patiala and Jhind] deserve almost any reward your 
lordship could bestow." He wrote to influential Sikhs 
who were under a cloud because of their share in the 
rebellion of the Khalsa and advised them to grasp this 
chance of retrieving their characters by enrolling their 
retainers against the mutineers. They did so, and before 
they understood the weakness of the whites and how 
near to realisation had been their dream of a greater 
Khalsa, they were at Delhi, committed to the British 
side, and hundreds of miles distant from the districts in 
which they had influence. 

The Mohammedans of the Punjab were no less loyal than 
the Sikhs. " When we had no military force near Kurnal, 
and all men watched anxiously the conduct of each loyal 
chief, the Nawab of Kurnal went to Mr. Le Bas and 
addressed him to the following effect : ' Sir, I have had a 
sleepless night in meditating on the state of affairs ; I have 
decided to throw in my lot with yours. My sword, my 
purse, and my followers are at your disposal.' " ^ 

Those jaghirdars whose battle Henry had fought success- 
fully also came forward to furnish men for the new corps ; 
and the Chief Commissioner was able to write to the 
Governor-General that " Your lordship need not fear for 
us." 

To every poorbeah officer in the Punjab he issued a copy 

of his brother's proclamation to the Oudh sepoys. At 

this period every official who had sepoys under his control 

was confronted by the toughest problem of the Mutiny — 

1 Mr. Raikes' Notes on the Revolt. 



262 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

whether a handful of Europeans should risk precipitating 
a crisis by attempting to disarm the sepoys, or whether, 
while simulating confidence in their integrity, the better 
policy would not be to appeal to the loyalty of their men 
and trust to their escaping the infection. No general rule 
could be laid down, so much depended on the men who had 
to meet the danger. Each must judge for himself, from 
his knowledge of the sepoys' temper, his confidence in his 
own ability to effect the disarming, the power of his 
influence to calm the panic and counteract the intrigues 
of the sepoy leaders. 

At Mian Mir, the cantonment of the Lahore division, 
a large force of sepoys and a few white troops were stationed. 
During the absence of the Chief Commissioner at Rawul 
Pindi, Montgomery, his Derry schoolfellow, was in civil 
charge over the Sikh capital. At Montgomery's request 
Captain Richard Lawrence of the Police (the youngest of 
the brothers) had been investigating the state of feeling 
at Mian Mir, and had for this purpose employed a Brahman 
whose loyalty he thoroughly trusted. The Brahman's 
report left little room for doubt, and when the bad news 
arrived from Delhi, Richard Lawrence had no consolation 
to offer his chief, no assurance that, whatever the Meerut 
sepoys might have done, their own men were faithful. 
" Sahib," the Brahman had said to him, " they are full of 
sedition," and, touching his throat significantly, he added, 
" They are up to this in it." ^ 

Montgomery agreed with the police captain that no time 
was to be lost, and Brigadier Corbett, with the calm 
resolution of one strong in moral courage, took the same 
view as his civilian colleague, and expressed his readiness 
to take the responsibility of disarming the poorbeahs. 
Shortly after dawn on May 13, four sepoy regiments, a 
handful of Europeans of her Majesty's 8ist, and a detach- 

1 The Sepoy War, vol. ii. p. 427. 



The Mutiny 263 

ment of artillery were assembled on the parade-ground. A 
simple manoeuvre brought the unsuspecting sepoys in 
front of the guns, behind which, during the movement, 
the companies of the 8ist had fallen back. The portfires 
were in the gunners' hands, the muskets of the English 
infantry were loaded, and, on the word of command, the 
sepoys laid down their arms. 

Not a blow was struck in this first battle in the Punjab, 
yet a great victory was won, and the noise of it travelled 
beyond the borders and caused many whom the Meerut 
bungling had convinced that the English had lost their 
virility, and who were about to take advantage of that 
helplessness, to reconsider their attitude. John Lawrence's 
delight was unbounded when the wires brought to Rawul 
Pindi the confirmation of his belief that he had subordinates 
upon whose tact and promptness he could rely. " Your 
Lahore men," he wrote to Montgomery, " have done 
nobly. I should like to embrace them ; Donald, Roberts, 
Mac, and Dick are, all of them, pucca trumps." 

The impression made upon the power-worshipping 
Punjabis by the promptness and resource shown at Mian 
Mir influenced the Chief Commissioner in favour of dis- 
arming the sepoy regulars throughout the province. 
" Our policy is to trust the people but not the Regulars," 
he said, though, in a letter to Edwardes, he admitted the 
drawbacks to this policy. " The misfortune of the present 
state of affairs is this," he wrote. " Each step we take for 
our own security is a blow against the regular sepoy. 
He feels this, and on his side takes a further step, and so 
we go on, until we disband or destroy them, or they mutiny 
and kill their officers." To Lord Canning he expressed the 
belief that there was not " a single regiment of the line in 
the Bengal Presidency, with the exception of the 66th ^ 

1 It will be remembered that Sir Charles Napier had brought this 
Gurkha battalion into the line, and granted them the colours and 
name of a regular regiment that had misbehaved. 



264 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

(Gurkhas) who will not desert us." " What we should 
avoid," he warned General Anson, " is isolation, and the 
commanders of stations each looking to his own charge, and 
not to the general weal. Many will, I fear, counsel delay 
and caution, but such a policy must prove ruinous." ^ 

As soon as he heard of the outbreak at Meerut, General 
Reed, the senior officer in the Punjab, held a council of 
war at Peshawar to consider a proposal, made by Nicholson 
and Edwardes, for the formation of a lightly-equipped 
movable column of English and Punjabi troops, " to move 
on any point and crush rebellion and mutiny. ' ' A telegram 
from Lawrence to Edwardes (whom he called his " Coun- 
sellor ") expressed warm approval of the proposal. 
General Reed, Brigadier Cotton, Colonels Neville Chamber- 
lain and Edwardes, Major John Nicholson, Captain Wright, 
and Lieutenant Frederick Roberts,- were present, and 
opinion was unanimous in favour of the scheme. This 
point settled, those staunch friends Edwardes and Nicholson 
slyly prepared the way for the adoption of a plan upon 

1 Bosworth|Smith, vol. i. p. 489, 

^ Lord Roberts, who was then on Neville Chamberlain's" stafif, 
and who was much younger than the other officers present, has 
related an interesting sequel to this conference. Later in the day 
Nicholson, finding that their plans had become known, called upon 
him and told him, " much to my disgust, that it was thought I 
might perhaps have been guilty of the indiscretion of divulging 
them. I was very angry for I had appreciated as much as any one 
the immense importance of keeping the decisions arrived at perfectly 
secret; and I could not help showing something of the indignation 
I felt at its having been thought possible that I could betray the 
confidence reposed in me." They then went to the telegraph office 
together. " The signaller was a mere boy, and Nicholson's imposing 
presence and austere manner were quite too much for him ; he was 
completely cowed, and, after a few hesitating denials, he admitted 
having satisfied the curiosity of a friend. . . . This was enough, 
and I was cleared. The result to me of this unpleasant incident 
was a delightful increase of intimacy with the man for whom above 
all others I had the greatest admiration and the most profound 
respect. As if to make up for his momentary injustice, Nicholson 
was kinder to me than ever, and I felt I had gained in him a firm 
and constant friend." — Forty-One Years in India, vol. i. pp. 71-72. 



The Mutiny 265 

which they had agreed, but which could not be openly 
explained. Their respect for General Reed could by no 
means be interpreted as blind admiration of his genius. 
He was merely a respectable soldier of a type common in 
the Company's army where seniority alone had any claim 
to the higher posts, and they doubted his fitness to cope 
with a situation that would tax the resource of a Wellington. 

The quick insight of these two most famous of " the 
wardens of the marches " had already warned them of the 
obstacles that would surely be placed in the way of their 
chief at Rawul Pindi by the conscientious but slower mind 
of the general, who would be able to issue his orders from 
Lahore or Peshawar, or wherever he might be, without 
consulting Lawrence. They knew that the least hint of 
divided counsels would be hailed by the natives as a further 
proof that the English were lachar (helpless), that their 
star had set; for, in native opinion, the chief source of 
English strength arises from the perfect loyalty of the 
parts to the whole, the certainty that when he who is in 
authority gives an order his subordinates will obey. 
Neither Edwardes nor Nicholson could always see eye to 
eye with John Lawrence, but their trust in him was absolute, 
and they wished him to be supreme in military as well as 
in civil affairs. They therefore manoeuvred the general 
with tactful suggestions so successfully that Reed proposed 
to make Rawul Pindi his headquarters, that he and the 
Chief Commissioner might be in constant communication. 
This was what the conspirators had played for, and they 
applauded the decision; and though General Reed never 
laid claim to be a brilliant soldier he gave proofs of strong 
common-sense — paradoxical term for so rare a quality — 
and a generous mind. Recognising that Lawrence was the 
better fitted to steer the boat he cheerfully subordinated 
himself and his office to the will of the civilian. 

A few days later Reed and Chamberlain (who had been 



2 66 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

given the command of the Movable Column) were summoned 
by Sir John to a conference at Rawul Pindi. Lieutenant 
Roberts was present for the purpose of drafting and copying 
the letters and telegrams. 

^ " I thus learned everything that was happening in the 
Punjab and became aware of the magnitude of the crisis 
through which we were passing. This enabled me to appre- 
ciate the tremendous efforts required to cope with the danger, 
and to understand that the fate of Delhi and the lives of 
our countrymen and countrywomen in Upper India de- 
pended upon the action taken by the authorities in the 
Punjab. I realised that Sir John Lawrence thought of 
every detail, and how correct was his judgment as to which 
of his subordinates could, or could not, be trusted." 

Nowhere was the gravity of the situation and the extent 
of the evil more justly appreciated than at Rawul Pindi, 
but in no other place was such optimism to be found. As 
they discussed the details of their plans, the grand con- 
fidence of the chief inspired and stimulated his colleagues, 
and the boyish spirit of Herbert Edwardes would break 
out, again and again, in some humorous sally or comical 
suggestion. A rumour had reached them to the effect 
that General Anson, instead of pushing forward to Delhi, 
contemplated entrenching his troops at Amballa. Anson 
was a noted authority on whist, and Edwardes suggested 
a message that he would appreciate. The idea appealed 
to the Irish nature of the chief and he sanctioned the 
despatch of the pithy telegram, " Clubs are trumps, not 
spades." 

It was well for John Lawrence at this time that he liked 
hard work and had trained himself to persevere in the 
face of depression, weariness, and pain. When the call 
came he was on his way to the hills, an invalid for whom 
rest and change were necessary; he was also suffering 
1 Forty-One Years in India, vol. i. p. 107. 



The Mutiny 267 

greatly from neuralgia, and altogether the conditions were 
sufficient to have overwhelmed a man of less heroic purpose. 
In the struggle that ensued the will was victorious and the 
body subjected, and, with the exception of his more intimate 
friends, no one guessed that the Chief Commissioner had 
other foes to conquer than those of the state, as his letters 
and telegraphic messages, gravid with good advice, clear 
and incisive, bold yet cautious, flew close upon each other's 
heels to the Commander-in-Chief, to his own assistants, 
and to the heads of provinces not under his control; and 
each of these letters displayed an insight and a tenacity of 
purpose which gave the reader confidence in his counsellor. 
His subordinates knew that he trusted them to act upon 
their own responsibility when necessary, but they were 
always conscious that he never relaxed his hold upon the 
reins. " I like issuing orders by telegraph," he said, 
" because they cannot give me their reasons, nor ask me 
for mine." " He was the biggest man I have ever known," 
said Daly of the Guides. " We used to call him ' King 
John ' on the frontier." 

When Daly passed through Rawul Pindi on his way to 
Delhi he found the Chief Commissioner " lying on his bed 
in terrible agony from tic. ' Ah ! ' he said to me, as I was 
leaving the room, ' you will, very likely, see my brother 
Henry before I do. He has a terrible job down there at 
Lucknow.' Throughout that afternoon a succession of 
gloomy telegrams had been coming in to Sir John, telling 
him that the Residency at Lucknow was beleaguered, and 
the whole country was ' up.' ' Tell him so and so,' said 
Sir John, and then came a string of very kindly messages. 
' Ah, well ! ' he ended up pathetically, and I fancy that I 
can, even now, see his big burly body lying on the bed as he 
said it, ' Ah, well ! Henry had a greater grip on men than 
I ever had! ' " ^ 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. pp. 4-6. Captain Daly had visited Sir 



268 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Unfortunately there was not a Corbett in command of 
every Punjab cantonment. The authorities at Amballa 
had been urged by Sir John to disarm their sepoys without 
delay, but they shrank from taking the plunge, and the 
pandies were allowed to escape to Delhi. Irresolution at 
Jalandar was the cause of a more serious misfortune, for 
there 3000 sepoys broke into open mutiny, and, after 
murdering some of their ofhcers, they marched to Phillour, 
and brought out the sepoy regiment stationed in that 
town. The Europeans troops at Jalandar were not sent in 
pursuit, and the mutineers, after plundering and burning 
in and about the town of Ludhiana, marched towards 
Delhi. Young Ricketts, a civilian, tried to hold them 
with 250 Sikhs, but, receiving no support from the brigadier, 
he was compelled to let go. 

The officials at Multan possessed in a marked degree 
those qualities whose absence at Jalandar had been so 
conspicuous. Though they had only sixty European 
artillerymen with whom to overawe no less than 3500 
sepoys, they contrived — by carrying out tactfully Sir John's 
instructions — to prevent an outbreak; and the arrival 
of some Punjab Irregulars enabled Crawfurd Chamberlain 
to disarm the sepoys. The chief was greatly elated by 
this success and cheered by the unselfish and broad-minded 
co-operation of Bartle Frere, Commissioner of Sind, whose 
views were identical with his own. " When the head and 
heart are threatened," Frere wrote to him, " the ex- 
tremities must take care of themselves." Frere was, in 
pursuance of this policy, not afraid to weaken his own 
province in order to help his neighbour, and he despatched 
a small European force up the Indus to Multan. 

Henry in Lucknow a few weeks before this date. " He gave me 
many messages to his brother John, all of tliem kind ones. But 
he laid most stress of all on a reminder which I was to give him to 
be very gentle and considerate in dealing with the Sirdai's. ' Ah, 
yes,' said John, when I gave him the message, ' that was always 
Henry's way.' " 



The Mutiny 269 

Next to Lahore in political and military importance 
was the station of Peshawar, where four regiments of 
poorbeah infantry and one of cavalry were brigaded with 
three weak Queen's regiments and a few guns; and close 
at hand, at Nowshera, were two sepoy corps, the 55th 
Infantry and the loth Irregular Cavalry. Thousands 
of armed tribesmen swarmed in the Peshawar Valley, 
waiting for the downfall of the British Raj, and eager to 
invite Dost Mohammed to snatch Peshawar from the hands 
of the infidel. " ' Why do you always ask so anxiously 
about Peshawur? ' " an English official at Amritsar asked 
of a loyal Sikh. " The sirdar did not at once reply, but, 
with much significance of manner, took up the end of his 
scarf, and began rolling it up from the corner between his 
finger and thumb. * If Peshawur goes, the whole Punjab 
will be rolled up in rebellion like this.' " ^ 

Fortunately there were at the " Gate of India " three 
men of rare gifts, Edwardes, the Commissioner, Nicholson, 
his deputy, and Brigadier Cotton in command of the troops, 
who were found prepared to play their parts in one of the 
most dramatic episodes of the Mutiny. On the night of 
May 21, a messenger aroused Edwardes and Nicholson with 
the news that the 55th was in a state of mutiny at Nowshera 
and that the loth Cavalry was wavering. A few moments 
later the two politicals stood by the bedside of the brigadier 
and a short consultation sufficed to determine the course 
of action. Before the sun had risen Cotton had assembled 
the commanding officers and given them orders to parade 
their men at once. The decision to disarm the sepoys was 
received with a bad grace by some of the officers, and these 
declared that they had not lost confidence in their men, 
and argued the danger to the border if its guardians were 
deprived of their weapons. But the three were not to be 
moved; four of the five regiments must be disarmed, and 
1 Cave-Browne's Punjab and Delhi, vol. i. p. 153. 

S 



270 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

the 2ist (now the ist Bengal Infantry), which had given 
evidence of a better spirit, should be exempted from the 
disgrace. 

The sepoys fell in without suspicion and were suddenly 
brought face to face with the guns behind which stood the 
white regiments. The order was given and the sepoys, 
cowed and uncertain of their comrades' support, quietly 
laid down their muskets and sabres, and on the pile fell 
the swords and spurs of more than one English officer. 

The effect on the frontier was magical. "As we rode 
down to the disarming," Colonel Edwardes wrote, " a very 
few chiefs and yeomen of the country attended us, and I 
remember, judging from their faces, that they came to see 
which way the tide would turn. As we rode back friends 
were as thick as summer flies, and levies began from that 
moment to come in." Previous attempts to enroll the 
tribesmen had failed, but now more offered than could be 
accepted. 

" I look on the disarming of the four corps at Peshawur 
as a master stroke," Lawrence wrote to Edwardes. " We 
are doing well in every district — Becher famously." 
Major Becher was in charge of the Hazara hills in the 
extreme north, and his share in the event will presently be 
seen. The 55th Native Infantry, whose mutiny at Now- 
shera was to have been the signal for a rising at Peshawar, 
had taken to flight, and Nicholson " with a handful of 
horsemen hurled himself like a thunderbolt on the route of 
a thousand mutineers."^ Among the hills of Swat he 
overtook them, and there was enacted the first act of the 
pitiful story of the 55th. The mutineers fought resolutely ; 
but " Nicholson was there ; his foot in the stirrup, his 
sword by his side, and a few trusty horsemen beside him," 
and 120 pan dies were slain and more captured. The 
remainder escaped for a time and wandered among the 
1 Edwardes' Official Report. 





A PATHAN. 
SHAHZADA SULTAN JAN OF KOHAT. 



The Mutiny 271 

inhospitable hills, mocked, abused, robbed, and stoned by 
the Mohammedan tribesmen. They turned towards the 
Hazara country, hoping to make their way through the 
defiles into Kashmir, where their co-religionist, Gulab 
Singh, was ruler. But Becher raised the tribes against 
the poorbeahs, hung on their flanks, harried them, and 
struck blow after blow. 

The miserable remnant turned again and plunged deeper 
into the hated mountains until lost to sight. There a 
worse fate awaited them. The petty chiefs to whom they 
offered their services laughed them to scorn, stripped them 
of their clothes, defiled their caste, murdered them as 
caprice prompted. The few who survived were forcibly 
converted to the faith of Islam and sold into slavery. 
It was the first knock-down blow dealt to the mutineers, 
and the disciples of Henry Lawrence remembered the old 
days at the Lahore Residency, and rejoijced that the credit 
belonged to two of their brotherhood. 

Edwardes and Cotton were both merciful men, but they 
firmly believed that a terrible example would in the end 
save much bloodshed, and the prisoners were sentenced 
to death. " The Native Army requires to be appalled," 
the former wrote to his chief. Nicholson spoke up for 
the few Punjabis of the corps, as he had reason to believe 
that they had been led away against their wills. " Spare 
the Sikhs and young recruits," said he. But Sir John, 
while agreeing that severity was necessary, held the 
opinion that more good would result if the natives were 
taught that their rulers were in no way driven to that 
severity by the promptings of revenge. He suggested to 
Cotton that the execution of one-third of the number would 
have equal effects as a deterrent, and advised him to select 
as victims the ringleaders and older soldiers, whose influence 
had carried away their juniors. Glad to be relieved of the 
responsibility, Cotton and Edwardes concurred, and forty 



272 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

of the leaders were blown from the guns on the parade- 
ground at Peshawar. 

The weakness of the little army before Delhi had become 
manifest to the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, and, 
early in June, he was forced to reconsider his disposition 
of the English troops in his province. He had underrated 
the difficulties and, especially, the spirit and vigour of the 
mutineers. " I still think that no real resistance at Delhi 
will be attempted," he had written to Anson. "... My 
impression is that, on the approach of our troops, the 
mutineers will either disperse or the people of the city 
rise and open their gates." ^ Had Hewitt promptly let 
loose the Carabineers and Horse Artillery after the Meerut 
sepoys little resistance would probably have been en- 
countered, but the inaction and seeming cowardice dis- 
played at Meerut had dispelled the old traditions of British 
invincibility and had given the sepoys confidence. 

General Anson had died on the way down, and his 
successor. Sir Henry Barnard, had now camped within a 
few miles of the walls. His force consisted of 3000 
Europeans with twenty-two small guns, and in Delhi were 
at least 30,000 soldiers and armed men, and each day 
brought its reinforcement. The ramparts of Delhi had 
recently been strengthened by Robert Napier and on the 
walls were mounted nearly two hundred guns of much 
heavier calibre than those of the British. In front of 
the English camp was the famous Delhi Ridge which over- 
looked the town and shielded the old cantonments from 
the Delhi guns, and so long as the enemy held this ridge 
no steps could be taken against the town. 

Barnard had not a single native corps under his com- 
mand and the general feeling in his camp was that none 
was to be trusted. On the afternoon of June i a body of 
dark-faced men was seen approaching ; the Alarm sounded, 
I The Sepoy War, vol. ii. p. 157. 



The Mutiny 273 

and, believing that an attempt was being made to outflank 
them, the camp rushed to arms. Then the bugles blew 
again and the alarm subsided, as the word was passed from 
man to man that Reid's Gurkhas had come down from 
the hills ready to kill or be killed, to bite cartridges, or eat 
" bullock-bone flour," if such was the wish of their British 
officers.^ 

The English soldiers rushed out to line the road and 
cheer the first loyal battalion, and as the little fellows were 
seen to be staggering from the effects of the heat and the 
long march, they took the Gurkhas by the arms and led 
them into camp. A few days later the battle of Badli-ka- 
Serai was fought, the Ridge was stormed, and the old 
cantonments regained; and the Gurkhas behaved so 
grandly that they were given the post of honour on the 
Ridge, the outpost house of Hindu Rao, on whose posses- 
sion depended the safety of the camp. 

" Send down the Gurkhas from the hills," Sir Henry had 
telegraphed. " We are pushing on the Guides," wrote 
Sir John, and on the day after the victory of Badli-ka- 
Serai the camp again turned out to welcome a second loyal 
corps, the Guides Cavalry and Infantry, who had made 
the most wonderful march in Indian annals. The Guides 
Infantry was posted with the Gurkhas and, side by side, 
these two corps made the land ring with their renown.^ 

1 Major Reid has recorded that whilst he was embarking his 
Gurkhas on the canal several men of the sappers came from Meerut 
and entered into communication with them. " I took no notice 
at first," he adds, " but as soon as they moved on, I called up a 
couple of my men and asked them what the sappers had said to 
them. One little fellow replied, ' They wanted to know if we were 
going to Meerut to eat the ottah sent up especially for the Gurkhas 
by the Governor-General; that the ottah at Meerut was nothing 
but ground bullocks' bones.' ' And what was your reply? ' I 
asked. ' I said,' was the answer, ' the regiment was going where- 
ever it was ordered — we obey the bugle-call.' " — The Sepoy War, 
vol. ii. p. 177. 

'^ As Hindu Rao's house was well within range of the big guns 
of the Mori Bastion, and was, moreover, the object of twenty -six 



2 74 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

The arrival of the Guides had a pohtical as well as a military 
aspect, as the mere fact that the " crack corps " of the 
Punjab was fighting on the British side added prestige 
to the cause. 

The Ridge had been gained, but the city lay before them 
vast and strong and confident, without a weak place in its 
armour, and Barnard's force realised that they were to be 
in every sense the besieged and not the besiegers. They 
had no guns that would make the least impression on 
Napier's defences ; sickness was thinning their ranks, and 
Sir Henry Barnard was one of the earliest victims. Hardly 
a day passed without its assault upon the Gurkha picket ; 
hardly an hour in which the big guns of the Mori Bastion 
did not sweep the outposts on the Ridge ; for nowhere did 
the pandies fight so staunchly as at Delhi. Two days 
after the battle of Badli-ka-Serai the Rohtak sepoys aug- 
mented the rebel garrison, and presently the mutineers 
poured in by hundreds from Jalandar, Bareilly, Nasirabad, 
and Neemuch. The news arrived that Havelock had his 
hands full and no hope of aid from that quarter might be 
entertained. The Punjab, whence alone reinforcements 
could be sent, was now almost denuded of trustworthy 
troops, and Edwardes, Nicholson, and Cotton were beseech- 
ing their chief to send no more, lest the weakness of their 
rulers should prove too strong temptation for the ambitious 
warriors of the Khalsa. " Anchor, Hardy, Anchor! " 
Edwardes wrote to him. Delhi is not India; let it wait 
until the China Force arrives. If you let the Punjab go 
all India is lost. 

But Lawrence was not convinced. If we weaken the 

distinct assaults (one lasting a day and a night), it is hardly surprising 
that very few of either Guides or Gurkhas returned to their homes. 
On the day of the storming of Delhi barely one hundred men of 
Reid's corps were reported fit for duty, but hearing what was 
toward ninety-five wounded Gurkhas crawled out of hospital and 
joined their officers. 



The Mutiny 275 

Punjab it may be fatal, he replied, but if a disaster happens 
to the Delhi Force all is indeed lost. In the first case ruin 
is probable; in the second, certain. There is only one 
source whence European aid can be sent to Delhi. The 
Peshawar garrison includes some three thousand white 
troops, who are gradually being slain by the climate. 
Dost Mohammed desires Peshawar; he is being urged to 
snatch it from us while we are weak. Let us then make 
him a present of the valley, and so secure his friendship, 
and withdraw Europeans and irregulars across the Indus, 
where half of them will be sufficient to guard the new 
frontier, and the rest can go to Delhi. 

Here John Lawrence stood alone, right or wrong, a grand 
figure, daring to run counter to opinion both popular and 
expert; not afraid to take the responsibility for a policy 
that seemed to smack of cowardice, a policy that might 
be — and was — quoted in after years as an instance of his 
lack of an infallibility to which he made no claim. Cotton 
and Nicholson, whose opinions he greatly valued, were as 
determined as Edwardes in their opposition, and even his 
own secretary. Major James, recorded a strongly-worded 
memorandum against his views. He stood alone, but 
unshaken. 

" You know on what a nest of devils we stand," Edwardes 
wrote to him. " Once take our foot up and we shall be 
stung to death; " and again, " Peshawur is the anchor of 
the Punjab, and if you take it up the whole ship will drift 
to sea." He and his colleagues declared emphatically that 
the Punjab would treat the abandonment of Peshawar as 
an admission that even John Lawrence knew that he was 
beaten, and then the game would indeed be up; and the 
Afghans, instead of displaying gratitude, would regard it 
as a sign that they might safely help themselves to 
more. 

"The Punjab Irregular Force," said Cotton, its com- 



276 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

manding officer, " no longer respecting our power, will, in 
all likelihood, turn against us. . . . I earnestly implore 
of you, my dear Sir John, to hold to our position on this 
frontier." " Give up every place but Peshawur, Lahore, 
and Multan," said Nicholson with equal emphasis. The 
Lumsdens, who were in Kandahar, sent word that the amir 
had already the utmost difficulty in keeping his subjects in 
hand. A retreat across the Indus would send the Afghans 
swarming through the passes, firmly convinced that " The 
good old days are back — -let us go to war ! " 

The Chief Commissioner deliberately weighed the argu- 
ments against him, and was not turned from his purpose. 
He admitted the force of the objections, agreed that the step 
he proposed was fraught with peril, that Dost Mohammed 
and the Punjabis of all classes would regard it as a sign of 
weakness, of which they might try to take advantage. 
But he did not waver in his conviction that the danger 
of disaster to the Delhi force was greater still. If a large 
portion of the Peshawar garrison and the Frontier Force 
could be released to swell the army before Delhi that town 
might quickly fall, and the effect of such a triumph would 
outweigh the temporary loss of prestige incurred by the 
abandonment of Peshawar. 

Not even John Lawrence could cede territory without the 
consent of the Governor-General. He placed before Lord 
Canning his reasons for contemplating a measure so 
reactionary and asked for one line in reply — either " Hold 
on to Peshawar to the last," or " You may act as may 
appear expedient in regard to Peshawar." The Governor- 
General was of the same opinion as Edwardes and Nicholson 
and he sent the " Hold on " telegram, but, as it had to 
travel via Madras and Bombay the danger was over before 
its arrival. 

In this one proposal the chief had not the support of his 
best officers, and the balance of opinion has been against 



The Mutiny 277 

him. On the other hand, Edwardes was the first to admit 
that though Sir John Lawrence had proposed to abandon 
Peshawar, he it was who, by sending down regiment after 
regiment to Delhi, when every one declared that not 
another man could be spared, had saved Peshawar and 
Delhi and the Indian Empire. 

Sir John was asked at a later date to explain the dis- 
tinctive features of the Punjab system that had proved so 
successful. He answered that it was the men that had 
done so well, not the system. And now, in June, came 
the call from Delhi not only for the troops of the Punjab, 
but also for his most trusted lieutenants. The Adjutant- 
General of the Delhi force had died, and as the post was one 
that no ordinary man could fill Lawrence offered either of 
his two best soldiers. They might have Neville Chamber- 
lain or Nicholson, but on one condition, that, should the 
former be taken from the Punjab, Nicholson, though only 
a regimental captain, must have command of the Movable 
Column, and must be given the rank of Brigadier-General 
so that into whatever station he might enter he would still 
be senior officer. The terms were accepted; Chamberlain 
went to Delhi, and Nicholson took his place. 

" I know you recommended it on public grounds," the 
latter wrote to his chief, " but I do not feel the less obliged 
to you. ... I have dismissed old grievances (whether real 
or imaginary) from my mind, and, as far as I am concerned, 
bygones are bygones. In return, I would ask you not to 
judge me over-hastily or hardly." ^ 

For two months John Nicholson retained his inde- 
pendent command, and the Movable Column justified its 
name as he swept the Punjab with it, and flung it from 
point to point wherever the pandies showed their heads. 
His office at Peshawar was given to Major James, who had 
not forfeited his chief's good opinion because he had dared 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 1 1 . 



278 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

to oppose him/ and Mr. Brandreth was appointed " acting " 
secretary. " Well, Brandreth," said Sir John, " you are 
come to be my Secretary, are you? You must be reticent, 
remember, all Secretaries must be. But you need not be 
so reticent as James, for he won't tell even me ! " ^ 

While Nicholson's column was operating in the Manjha 
the spread of disaffection reached Rawul Pindi, and the 
thoroughness with which the Chief Commissioner had 
cleared the province of trustworthy troops was brought 
home to him. The poorbeahs at Rawul Pindi were 
comrades of those at Jhelum and Sialkot, stations about 
sixty and one hundred miles to the south-east, and a lead 
given at any of the three stations would probably be 
followed by the others. In the beginning of July Sir John 
gave instructions to disarm, and at the Rawul Pindi parade 
he rode forward to address the sepoys, and in so doing 
placed himself between them and the gunners, who, port- 
fires in hand, had their orders to blow away the poorbeahs 
on the first sign of resistance or flight. Before he could 
speak, the accidental discharge of a carbine sent the sepoys 
racing for their lines where they might hope to make a 
stand. Happily the gunners were not carried away by 
the excitement; they held their hands and allowed the 
sepoys to gain the shelter, " but Lawrence at once galloped 
after them, and, regardless of the eagerness with which they 
were all loading around them, called to them to listen and 
not to cause their own destruction. He thought nothing 
of his own peril in his anxiety to save them; and with 
Colonel Barstow's aid, he was successful." ^ 

At Jhelum the Chief Commissioner's instructions were 
disregarded, with the result that the sepoys broke loose, 

1 Taylor, the engineer, has said that tliough Lawrence was a 
" hard taskmaster," he would " take back plain speaking " from 
his assistants. 

'^ Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 12. 

^ Mr. Brandreth, quoted by Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 36. 



The Mutiny 279 

and gave the signal to Sialkot, a station that contained no 
European troops. The poorbeah infantry allowed their 
officers to escape, but the cavalry troopers committed many 
murders, sacked the station, captured a gun, and, with the 
infantry, set off to Delhi, firmly convinced that the British 
were indeed lachar. 

But these Sialkot regiments had not reckoned with 
Nicholson, who heard of the murders as he returned from 
one of his daurs^ in the neighbourhood of Amritsar, one 
hundred miles from Sialkot. It was the hottest time of 
the year, and as the Europeans of the Movable Column had 
already been hard-worked, he requisitioned for their use 
every light vehicle and every horse upon which he could 
lay hands, and dashed towards the Ravi to cut them off. 
The pandies knew how far away were the nearest English 
troops, and, putting their trust in the July sun, they had 
no fear of infantry. Nicholson struck them just after 
they had crossed the Ravi. Though the sepoys fought 
pluckily, they were driven back towards the river and 
penned on an island in mid-stream, where they remained 
for three days until Nicholson had collected boats. He 
then embarked a portion of his force, and, at their head, 
went straight for the gun which the pandies had turned 
upon him. In command was a big sepoy, whom Nicholson 
cut clean in two with one mighty stroke; and, a few 
moments later, the Sialkot regiments had ceased to exist. 

This tragedy was cited to the Governor-General by Sir 
John as an instance of what could be done by a resolute 
commander. The generals that had allowed the sepoys 
to escape at Meerut, Jalandar, and elsewhere would never 
have dreamed of the attempt; others, more energetic, 
might have considered its feasibility and have judged that 
the bare possibility of exchanging a few shots with the 
mutineers, and so hastening their flight, could not be 
1 Minor expeditions. 



28 o The Lawrences of the Punjab 

weighed against the ill-effects of the exposure of the 
Europeans to the sun. But Nicholson determined to 
destroy them, and he did it completely, and the moral 
effect was of greater benefit than the mere diminution of 
the sepoy ranks by a thousand men. The news of the 
wonderful pursuit flew through the Punjab, strong men 
discussed that feat of swordsmanship, and while those 
natives who had chosen the British side felt new strength 
and confidence, the waverers felt less inclined to pit them- 
selves against such a man; and the mutineers, dreading 
him as a demon, were already half-beaten whenever he 
opposed them. An incident of the pursuit is characteristic 
of the man.i After marching thirty miles the column 
reached a grove and the officers begged that their men 
might rest beneath the shade for an hour or two, and, as 
many had been struck down by the sun, the general 
reluctantly consented. Presently one English soldier, 
and then another, looked round for the young leader and 
found him " in the full glare of the sun, sitting bolt upright 
upon his horse, and perfectly motionless," in " silent 
protest." A whisper passed down the outstretched ranks, 
and the men rose and resumed the march, worthy of their 
leader. 

But in spite of the exertions of the ever-victorious 
Movable Column the Punjab was uneasy, for at the end 
of July the re-capture of Delhi seemed more remote than 
ever. Sir John had moved to Lahore, and soon after his 
arrival one of the disarmed regiments there had bolted, 
after cutting its colonel to pieces ; the example had been 
followed at Peshawar (where the European garrison was 
reduced by sickness to one-third its nominal strength) and 
at other places, and, though swift punishment had overtaken 
the mutineers, 2 these risings were symptoms that the strain 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 42. 

^ The 51st " made a rush on the arms of the new Sikh corps whilst 



The Mutiny 281 

could not much longer be borne. General Reed had 
succeeded Sir Henry Barnard in command of the Delhi 
force, and when he, its third commander, was struck down 
by illness. General Wilson took his place. The rebel 
numbers were growing in far greater proportion than 
were the British, who, however, still hung on with a bull- 
dog tenacity that had its effect in keeping the Sikhs quiet ; 
but Wilson was ill and Chamberlain wounded, there was 
talk of retiring, and the Punjab quivered. To spare 
another man from the province was impossible! And Sir 
John Lawrence accomplished the impossible. He sent 
off more than three thousand — no less a reinforcement 
than the Movable Column, and John Nicholson himself 
to lead it to other and greater victories. Not content with 
thus robbing his province of the force that had overawed 
five times its number, Sir John at the same time began to 
prepare at Ferozepore a siege-train capable of battering 
down the walls of Delhi. 

Khalsa was at dinner. Khalsa dropped his curry and went in for 
victory," and there was no longer any 51st Native Infantry. — 
Edwardes' s Letter to the Chief Commissioner^ 



CHAPTER XXIII 

{May-July 1857) 

SIEGE OF LUCKNOW AND DEATH OF HENRY LAWRENCE 

Henry Lawrence prepared — He wins over a Number of Sepoys — 
Failure of the Rebel Plans — A Headstrong Subordinate — The 
Cawnpore Massacre — Chinhut — Death of Henry Lawrence. 

The news from Meerut and Delhi had reached Lucknow 
and, for two or three days, anticipation of its comet-train 
of consequences had been filHng the minds of the inhabi- 
tants of the Oudh capital with hope or consternation 
before Sir Henry Lawrence made a move. He refused 
to precipitate a crisis until he was ready to deal with it. 
But on the morning of May 17 the mutinously-inclined 
awoke to the fact that they had been forestalled, and that 
while they intrigued the situation in Lucknow had quietly 
been changed. " An entirely new and effective disposition 
of the troops " had been made; the bridges over the 
Gumti connecting the cantonments and the city were under 
the control of the 32nd Foot; the Muchi Bawn, a huge 
building close to the Chief Commissioner's Headquarters, 
had been garrisoned, and the European women and children 
were safe within the Residency. 

" In the cantonment where I reside," Sir Henry wrote 
to Lord Canning, " the 270 or so men of H.M.'s 32nd 
with 8 guns, could at any time knock to pieces the four 
native regiments." Although the Residency was in no 
immediate danger he caused all houses in its neighbourhood 
that might serve to shelter assailants to be destroyed, 
and the owners were given full compensation, but neither 

282 



Siege of Lucknow 283 

mosque nor temple would he permit to be touched. 
" Spare the holy places," was his reply, when urged to 
complete the measures for the Residency's defence, though 
none knew better than he the use to which such buildings 
would be put in case of an assault upon his posts. He 
then issued the following memorandum to his officers :— 

" Time is everything just now. Time, firmness, prompt- 
ness, conciliation, and prudence; every officer, each 
individual European, high and low, may at this crisis prove 
most useful or even dangerous. A firm and cheerful 
aspect must be maintained; there must be no bustle, no 
appearance of alarm, still less of panic; but at the same 
time there must be the utmost watchfulness and prompt- 
ness; everywhere the first germ of insurrection must be 
put down instantly. Ten men may in an hour quell a row 
which, after a day's delay, may take weeks to put down. 
I wish this point to be well understood. . . ." ^ 

He also emphasised the importance of committing the 
well-disposed talukdars, zemindars, and sepoys to the side 
of the Government, of helping to overcome the irresolution 
of those who were " sitting upon the fence " and influence 
them towards a right decision. The wavering sepoy, 
with no animus against the English and no sense of personal 
wrong over which to brood, would still throw in his lot 
with the majority if left to decide for himself, unaided; 
and a hatred of the alien would develop with time and the 
sense of antagonism between black and white. But let 
the waverers be given some responsibility, duly yet not 
obviously safe-guarded ; let them be separated, unostenta- 
tiously and, if possible, upon some plausible pretext, from 
the disaffected, and quartered with comrades whose 
steadiness might reasonably be counted upon, and on the 
test-day their environment would affect their actions and 
might incline them duty-wards. He could understand 
^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 324. 



284 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

and make allowance for the hesitation, the inclination 
swaying from one side to the other, could sympathise with 
the helpless groping among conflicting sentiments, emotions, 
and prejudices, and one of the elements of his influence — 
hardly less potent indeed than his personal magnetism — 
was his ability to divine the exact degree of trust that might 
safely be placed in men in order to gain their confidence, 
avoiding, on the one hand, the danger of giving what 
would be misused, and, on the other, by withholding, of 
arousing resentment of the implied suspicion. By assum- 
ing with the undecided that loyalty and devotion to duty 
would be forthcoming, he created those virtues in the 
minds of men accustomed to obey — bred to subordinate 
roles. When reason was thrust impatiently aside unable to 
obtain a hearing, when even immediate interests were 
being disregarded, when Fear brought forth a desperate 
courage, the assumption that a certain line of conduct 
was expected would prevail when argument would fail. 
Other men had greater faith in their sepoys, and showed it, 
and perished; others had less and failed or partially 
succeeded according to the soundness of the measures taken 
to ward the blow, and to the extent of their resources. 
But none made such good use of waverers as he did of those 
whose defection would have been certain had not his know- 
ledge of human nature, his sympathy with — and yet 
mastery over — the weak in purpose, enabled him to show 
just enough belief in the sepoy to make him wish to justify 
the confidence, and yet not enough for him to take advantage 
of. He took the measure of his instruments and by rely- 
ing upon them made them the more fit to be relied upon. 
Nothing was too trivial for his observation, and in the 
memorandum already quoted he showed his knowledge 
of the chieftains, native officers, and common sepoys into 
whose blood the poison had not yet worked its way by 
naming one who " can hit a bottle at a hundred yards," 



Siege of Lucknow 285 

and referring to others who owned double-barrelled guns 
and were good shots. Such were the men he wished his 
officers to win over. 

His mastery of detail, his activity, the thoroughness of 
his personal inspection, amazed those who knew how 
feeble was his frame. " Night and day seemed all the 
same to him," said one of the besieged. He spent most 
of his time in the native cantonment, where he gained the 
esteem of the sepoys, and in her diary of the siege Lady 
Inglis tells how the Europeans looked up to him. During 
the evening service on Sunday, May 24 — a favourite time 
for the outbreak of mutiny — the boom of cannon was 
heard, and for a moment the congregation was thrown into 
a state of panic, but " Sir Henry did not even turn his 
head, so we felt quite re-assured." The reports merely 
announced the end of the Ramazan Fast. 

But he trusted not in himself and his measures of pre- 
caution. " Often was he found upon his knees, by those 
who entered his room to convey information or to solicit 
instruction." ^ 

On May 30 a sepoy of the 13th Native Infantry 
warned Captain Wilson, the Deputy- Adjutant-General, 
that a rising had been planned for that evening, and Sir 
Henry's spirit rose with the nearness of danger so that 
disease and the burden of years fell from him. " We are 
pretty jolly," he wrote to Mr. Raikes that day, and he 
refused to evince anxiety by abandoning a dinner-party 
at the Residency. " I sat at the bottom of the table," 
wrote Captain Wilson,^ " and when the 9 p.m. gun was 
fired, Sir Henry said with a laugh, ' Wilson, your friends 
are not punctual.' " Almost as he spoke the rattle of 
musketry was heard from the direction of the cantonments. 
The chief had formed his plans. 

1 The Sepoy War, vol. iii. p. 494. 

* Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 332. 



286 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

" The horses were at once ordered," says Captain Wilson, 
" and Sir Henry stood outside in the moonhght, on the 
steps of the Residency, impatiently awaiting his horse. 
There was a guard of a native officer and sixty sepoys on 
duty in the Residency, and immediately on the alarm 
the native officer had drawn them up in line about thirty 
yards distant, directly in front of where Sir Henry Law- 
rence stood. And now the soobahdar came to me, and, 
saluting, said, ' Am I to load ? ' I turned to Sir Henry, 
and repeated the question ; he said, ' Oh, yes, let him 
load.' The order was at once given, and the ramrods fell 
with that peculiar dull sound on the leaden bullets. I 
believe Sir Henry was the only man of all that group 
whose heart did not beat the quicker for it. But he, as 
the men brought up their muskets with the tubes levelled 
directly against us, cried out, ' I am going to drive those 
scovmdrels out of cantonment : take care while I am away 
that you all remain at your posts, and allow no one to do 
any damage here, or enter my house, else when I return 
I will hang you.' . . . The guard remained steadily at its 
post, and with the bungalows blazing and shots firing all 
round, they allowed no one to enter the house, and the 
residence of Sir Henry was the only one that was not either 
pillaged or burnt." 

With two guns and a company of the European infantry 
he crossed the Gumti and blocked the roads leading from 
the cantonment to the city. Deceived by the apparent 
unpreparedness of the English — as evidenced by the 
dinner-party — no plot had been formed for a simultaneous 
rising in city and cantonment. The budmashes (bad 
characters) were awaiting the triumphant entry of the 
mutineers, and the promptness with which the disciplined 
sepoys had been cut off from the rabble of the town had 
disconcerted them all. Sir Henry had notified the English 
officers of the native regiments that on the first s5rmptom 



Siege of Lucknow 287 

of the outbreak those sepoys who had not committed 
themselves to rebelhon should be separated from the 
actively disloyal before they should have time to make up 
their minds, and now a strong body of faithful poorbeahs 
from the cantonment marched to join the Chief Com- 
missioner by the bridge he was guarding. They brought 
the news that Brigadier Handscombe, the officer in com- 
mand of the cantonment, had been killed by a stray shot, 
and that Lieutenant Grant of the 71st and Cornet Raleigh 
of the 7th Cavalry had been murdered. Three hundred 
of these loyal sepoys — less than five hundred in all — be- 
longed to the 13th Bengal Native Infantry, a corps already 
marked by Lawrence as the most likely to prove true, and 
they brought with them their colours and treasure-chest. 

Next morning, Sunday, May 31, Lawrence with the 32nd 
Foot and some of the loyal dark-faces chased and captured 
a number of the rebels. The heat was too fierce for 
sustained pursuit, and in view of the exhaustion of the 
Europeans he ordered the troops to retire to their quarters. 
Attended only by his aide-de-camp he followed on the 
heels of the mutineers until he reached a police-post where 
he was able to obtain materials for a letter and a messenger 
to gallop with it to Sitapur to warn the Commissioner of 
the danger threatening his station. The warning arrived 
too late ; the sepoys of Sitapur had already risen. 

In the course of the day the budmashes and a large 
number of the nawab's disbanded troops headed an 
insurrection in the city, but the rising was suppressed by 
the 32nd, the loyal sepoys, and the native police. Pre- 
vented by Lawrence's night-move from joining forces with 
the regulars the rabble had little stomach for the fight. 

" We are now positively better than we were," Sir Henry 
wrote to Lord Canning next day. " We now know our 
friends and enemies." 

A number of the Lucknow mutineers made straight for 



288 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Delhi, but some carried the torch of rebelhon through the 
villages of Oudh, and the sepoy regiments in other parts 
of the province rose in rebellion. 

That so large a number of poorbeahs had stood the fire- 
test was one of the most encouraging features of the 
situation. The summer heat would soon have rendered 
the Europeans unfit to carry out the many harassing 
duties which could now be undertaken by the loyal sepoys, 
and the Lucknow officers praised their chief to whose 
influences and tact the result was due. But the second 
in command took a different view. 

Mr. Gubbins was happy only in opposition, and Kaye 
has said that, lacking other opponent, Martin would have 
quarrelled with Gubbins, and Gubbins with Martin. In- 
domitably brave, fiercely energetic, he chafed at Sir Henry's 
cautious methods, scoffed at the idea that 700 British 
soldiers could not hold their own without poorbeah aid, 
was all for aggressive measures and for taking risks out of 
proportion to the chances of success. Lawrence, after 
watching his Financial Commissioner ride straight at the 
sepoy mob on May 31, had declared to Lord Canning that 
Gubbins was a hero ; and no man was better fitted to lead 
a forlorn hope, nor more unsuited to cope with a situation 
requiring infinite tact, foresight, and patience. Though 
despising the loyalty professed and demonstrated by the 
regular sepoys, the civilian was prepared to place reliance 
upon the Oudh Irregulars, on whom Sir Henry was loth 
to count. The persistent opposition of the headstrong 
subordinate, his continual urging of impossible aggressive 
measures, and his evident desire to supersede his chief, 
gradually wore down the frail health. Conscious that he 
might soon succumb, and dreading a catastrophe, Sir 
Henry determined to prevent Mr. Gubbins from becoming 
his successor, and on June 4 he telegraphed to the 
Governor-General : 



Siege of Lucknow 289 

" If anything happens to me during present disturbances, 
I earnestly recommend that Major Banks succeed me as 
Chief Commissioner, and Colonel Inglis in command of the 
troops, until better times arrive. This is no time for 
punctilio as regards seniority. They are the right men, 
in fact the only men for the places." 

Five days later the Chief Commissioner was so ill that 
the doctors ordered him to abstain from work. He obeyed 
and appointed a provisional council, consisting of Mr. 
Gubbins, Mr. Ommaney, Colonel Inglis, and Majors Banks 
and Anderson, but though the three soldiers pinned their 
faith to Sir Henry, so great was Mr. Gubbins' force of 
character that he led the council. He seized the chance 
of dismissing the sepoys, disarmed, to their homes, and 
had partially carried out the scheme when the invalid rose 
from his bed, dissolved the council, returned their arms 
to the majority of the sepoys, and increased their numbers 
by inviting pensioners of the Company's army to join the 
ranks. 

So great was Sir Henry's prestige that he had little 
difficulty in amassing good stores of provisions from many 
of the principal talukdars and in obtaining from the same 
source prompt intelligence of the rebel movements. Nor 
were advice and suggestions on the part of natives wanting. 
One well-meaning Brahman approached Sir Henry with 
the serious proposal that " a number of monkeys should 
be procured, and that they should be kept at the Residency, 
and attended and fed by high-caste Brahmans, and that 
this measure would not only be the means of propitiating 
all the Hindoo deities in our favour, but that it would also 
tend to make the British rule in India again popular with 
the natives. Sir Henry put on his hat, and, rising, said 
in the courteous tone for which he was ever remarkable: 
' Your advice, my friend, is good. Come with me, and I 
will show you my monkeys.' And, leading the way, he 



290 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

walked into a newly-completed battery, and, laying his 
hand on the i8-pounder gun which occupied it, observed: 
' See here is one of my monkeys ; that,' indicating a pile of 
shot, ' is his food ; and this ' (pointing to a sentry of the 
32nd Foot) ' is the man who feeds them. There ! go and 
tell your friends of my monkeys.' " ^ 

He found time to send his brother George advice with 
respect to the policy to be maintained in Rajputana,'^ 
and his correspondence of this period shows his keen 
interest in the affairs of the Punjab and other provinces, 
and that he did not make the mistake of supposing that 
his charge was the one place on which attention should be 
concentrated. 

To Mr. Colvin, at Agra, he wrote on June 12, that " Mr. 
Gubbins has been almost insubordinately urgent on me 
to disband these remnants. ... He is a gallant, energetic, 
clever fellow, but sees only through his own vista, and is 
therefore sometimes troublesome." To Lord Canning: 
" The conduct of the Europeans is beautiful. By God's 
help we can hold our own for a month, but there should be 
no delay in sending succour. ' ' 

To General Wheeler, at Cawnpore, who had appealed for 
help, he was compelled by the presence of the women and 
children in Lucknow to reply that his chief officers " are 
unanimous in thinking that with the enemy's command 
of the river, we could not possibly get a single man into 
your intrenchment. I need not say that I deeply lament 
being obliged to concur in this opinion. . . . Mr. Gubbins, 
who does not understand the difficulties of the most 

1 Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 346-347. 

" That the Rajput princes took no part in the rebellion was 
without doubt due to Sir Henry's success in allaying their fears. 
He was also cheered by the news that the Native States, in whose 
cause he had suffered so much, were acting — in Canning's own words 
— -as " breakwaters to the storm, which would otherwise have swept 
over us in one great wave." 



Siege of Lucknow 291 

difficult of military operations, the passage of a river in 
the face of an enemy, is led away by generous enthusiasm 
to desire impossibilities. I write not only my own opinion, 
but that of many ready to risk their lives to rescue you. 
God grant you His protection." 

His heart was wrung by a note from Wheeler on the 24th, 
describing the pitiable state of the Europeans at Cawnpore, 
and, attempting to reply in a tone of encouragement, he 
urged him not to " accept any terms from the enemy, as 
I much fear treachery. You cannot rely on the Nana's 
promises. // a tue beaucoup de prisonniers." He sent a 
message to inform Havelock of Wheeler's extremity, and 
wrote to Mr. Colvin that " we have no fear except for 
Wheeler, for supplying whom I am making every exertion." 

But the next day, June 28, brought the news of the 
tragedy ; Wheeler had trusted the Mahratta. 

Immediately after the Cawnpore massacre the rebels 
began to concentrate against Lucknow, and, rather than 
submit tamely to an investment. Sir Henry resolved to take 
a great risk. His letter to Havelock tells the result. 

My DEAR Havelock, — This morning we went out eight miles 
to Chinhut to meet the enemy, and we were defeated, and lost five 
guns through the misconduct chiefly of our Native Artillery, many 
of whom deserted. The enemy have followed us up, and we have 
now been besieged for four hours, and shall probably to-night be 
surrounded. The enemy are very bold, and our Europeans very 
low. I look on our position now as ten times as bad as it was 
yesterday; indeed, it is very critical. We shall be obliged to con- 
centrate if we are able. We shall have to abandon much supplies, 
and to blow up much powder. Unless we are relieved quickly, say 
in ten or fifteen days, we shall hardly be able to maintain our 
position. We lost three officers killed this morning, and several 
wounded — Colonel Case, Captain Stephen, and Mr. Brackenbury. 

" Sir Henry Lawrence has been blamed for this mis- 
fortune," wrote one of the defenders of Lucknow,^ " and 

' Colonel Wilson's narrative. Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. 
p. 366. 



292 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

as he commanded, the responsibihty must rest on him. 
But none but those who were in his immediate confidence 
are aware of all the difficulties of his position. The whole 
city of Lucknow was wavering; hourly reports were 
brought in of the intended defection of our few native 
adherents. It was well known that the Cawnpore garrison 
had been destroyed. All the out-stations in Oude were 
gone. Our servants were deserting. Sir Henry felt that 
he must endeavour to take the initiative ; and yet he was 
afraid to weaken the garrison too much, or venture too far 
away, lest he should endanger one or both of the positions 
we were holding. ..." 

The disaster was great, but the enterprise was not one 
foredoomed to failure. A soldier who never takes risks 
is rarely of much service to his country, and — so close lie 
failure and success — had the rations been served out to the 
Europeans, as ordered by Sir Henry, the effect of Chinhut 
might have been to have delayed the investment of the 
Residency, to have damped the ardour of the pandies 
throughout Oudh, and so have rendered Havelock's 
advance more easy — the objects he had in view. In the 
confusion his instructions had been disregarded, and, 
under the deadly rays of the midsummer sun, the Europeans, 
without their " coffee, biscuits, and rum," were rapidly 
demoralised so that they could neither march nor fight. 
The mutineers had engaged reluctantly, assured of defeat, 
but observing the pitiable state of the 32nd, they joyously 
rose to the occasion, and charged upon their opponents 
with an ardour equalling their former prowess under 
British officers. Many of the irregular horse and artillery 
deserted to the rebels, two guns were purposely overturned 
and put out of action, the 32nd were swept away, and 
though the loyal sepoy regulars and the handful of 
European volunteer cavalry strove manfuUy to retrieve 
the day, they were compelled to retire, hopelessly defeated. 



Siege of Lucknow 293 

Sir Henry did all that man could do to turn disaster into 
victory, and, when all hope of this had fled, to save his 
retreating soldiers from annihilation, bluffing the triumphant 
rebels back from their prey with lighted portfire above 
an empty, useless gun. " Throughout that terrible day, 
during the conflict, and when all was lost, and retreat 
became all but a rout, and men were falling fast, he dis- 
played the utmost calmness and decision; and as with 
his hat off, he sat on his horse on the Kokrail bridge, rallying 
our men for a last stand, himself a distinct mark for the 
enemy's skirmishers, he seemed to bear a charmed life." ^ 
He led the remnant of the force into the Residency and 
the enemy closed around them. 

Hitherto the English had held three positions in Lucknow 
—the cantonment across the river, the Muchi Bawn, and 
the Residency. The cantonment was now lost to them and 
the reduced garrison was no longer strong enough to hold 
the Muchi Bawn. An emergency code of signalling 
between this palace and the Residency had been arranged, 
and, on July i, Lawrence gave orders for the with- 
drawal of the troops at midnight, while he made a feint 
to cover the retirement, a most hazardous undertaking 
carried out with entire success. The famous siege of the 
Lucknow Residency ^ had begun. 

On the day preceding the withdrawal of the Muchi 
Bawn garrison a shell had entered the room in which the 
Chief Commissioner was working and had burst harmlessly 
between him and his secretary. His friends implored him 
to occupy a less exposed portion of the building, but, as he 
had chosen the room because its position enabled him to 
overlook the operations, he laughingly made answer that 
" he did not believe the enemy had an artilleryman good 

1 Colonel Wilson's narrative. 

2 The term Residency here comprehends the official buildings in 
the neighbourhood of the Resident's house — practically the English 
quarter of the town. 



294 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

enough to put another shell into that small room." Early 
next morning, July 2, he had retired to this room a few 
hours after the safe entry of the Muchi Bawn troops, 
and, being greatly exhausted, he lay on a couch attended 
by his nephew, George Lawrence, and by Captain Wilson. 
Wilson was submitting a manuscript to his chief, when 
1" the fatal shot came: a sheet of flame, a terrific report 
and shock, and dense darkness, is all I can describe. I fell 
down on the floor, and perhaps for a few seconds was quite 
stunned; and then got up, but could see nothing for the 
smoke and dust. Neither Sir Henry nor his nephew made 
any noise, and in great alarm I cried out, ' Sir Henry, are 
you hurt? ' Twice I thus called out without any answer. 
The third time he said in a low tone, ' I am killed.' The 
punkah had come down, and the ceiling, and a great deal 
of the plaster, and the dust and smoke was so great that 
it was some minutes before I could see anything ; but as it 
gradually cleared away, I saw the white coverlid of the 
bed on which Sir Henry was laid was crimson with his 
blood. Some soldiers of the 32nd now rushed in, and 
placed Sir Henry in a chair." 

A fragment of the shell had struck the upper part of the 
left thigh, almost tearing off the leg. He was quickly 
removed to a less exposed room, and the doctor, in reply 
to the pressing and repeated question, " How long have I 
to live? " could give him hope of forty-eight hours only. 
The officers of the garrison gathered round the bedside 
to receive their beloved master's last instructions. He 
appointed Major Banks his successor to the Chief Com- 
missionership and Colonel Inglis to the command of the 
troops, and while he lingered in pain, pity for the English 
women and children, exposed to so great danger, suffering, 
and privation, prevailed over every other sentiment. He 
had no commiseration to spare for himself. 
I Wilson's narrative. 



Siege of Lucknow 295 

Even the despised native servants were remembered 
and rewarded and brought in to receive their master's 
blessing. 

" . . . He also sent for all those," said his nephew, 
" whom he thought he had ever, though unintentionally, 
injured, or even spoken harshly to, and asked their for- 
giveness. His bed was surrounded by old friends and 
new friends, and there were few dry eyes there." "... 
Of himself," wrote the doctor who attended him,^ " he 
spoke most affectingly and humbly, ignoring his own great 
merits, and dwelling on what he thought his own short- 
comings." 

His last injunctions to the garrison were: " No surren- 
der ! Let every man die at his post ; but never make 
terms." ^ 

" Reserve fire. Check all wall firing. Carefully register 
ammunition for guns and small arms in store. Carefully 
register daily expenditure as far as possible." " Entrench, 
entrench, entrench." He asked that on his tomb should 
be inscribed the simple epitaph: "Here lies Henry Law- 
rence, who tried to do his duty," and he expressed the 
hope that the Government would take care of the Lawrence 
Asylums. 

On the morning of July 4 he died, and when the sun 

had gone down he was buried in the Residency grounds ; 

and as the soldiers filed into the room to bear the body to 

the grave, each man stepped forward and, lifting the 

^ Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, vol. ii. p. 376. 
* " Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post! " 
Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the best of the 

brave : 
Cold were his brows when we kiss'd him — we laid him that night in 

his grave 
" Every man die at his post ! " and there hail'd on our houses and halls 
Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-balls, 
Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight barricade, 
Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stoop't 

to the spade. 



296 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

coverlet, reverently kissed the cold forehead of him whom 
all loved and honoured — the tribute he would most have 
prized. 

Henry Lawrence was dead, and strong men wept when 
they heard the news. Englishmen who had never met 
him went about heavily, mourning as for a dear friend, 
and the grief of the loyal natives was hardly less real. 
" Of all men in India," wrote the Governor-General, " he 
is the one whose loss is least reparable at this moment," 
and " amongst those who have nobly perished in this 
protracted struggle, Sir Henry Lawrence will occupy the 
first place in the thoughts of his fellow-countrymen. . . . 
The name of Sir Henry Lawrence can never rise up without 
calling forth a tribute of honour and admiration from all 
who knew him." 

"What a blow it is! " Edwardes wrote to his wife.^ 
" What widespread sorrow it will bring! It is like a good 
king dying. It is wonderful what a number of hearts loved 
him, at home and here, black as well as white. You know 
what we of his old staff will feel about it. He was our 
master, friend, example, all in one; a father to us in the 
great earnest public life to which he led us forth. ..." 

" It would be selfish to wish it otherwise," the same 
disciple wrote to Nicholson; " for what a change for him, 
after his long battle of life, his restless strife for the benefit 
of others— the State, the army, the native Princes, the 
native people, the prisoners in gaol, the children of the 
English soldiery, and all that were poor and all that were 
down. , . . Fine, brave old fellow! he has fought his 
fight, and won his victory, and now let him lay his armour 
down and rest. . . . His last act at Lahore was to kneel 
down with his dear wife, and pray for the success of John's 
administration." 

" If it please Providence that I live through this business," 
^ Memorials of Sir H. B. Edwardes, vol. ii. p. 29. 



Siege of Lucknow 297 

Nicholson replied, " you must get me alongside of you again, 
and be my guide and help in endeavouring to follow his 
example ; for I am so weak and unstable that I shall never 
do any good of myself. I should like to write you a long 
letter, but I cannot manage it. . . . God be with you, dear 
Edwardes." 

" All men loved him," said Kaye/ " because he loved 
all men. . . . And many, perhaps, will say that they do 
not quite know why of all men, of whom they had ever 
read in Indian history, he seemed to be the flower; but 
that they cannot help feeling it." " Than his," wrote 
Colonel Malleson,^ who completed the great work that 
Kaye did not live to finish, "it is difficult to imagine a 
purer, a more unselfish, a more blameless, and at the same 
time a more useful life." ^"No Englishman who has 
been in India has ever influenced other men so much for 
good . . . nobody has ever been so beloved, nobody 
has ever deserved to be so beloved, as Sir Henry Lawrence." 

A fortnight after the hero of Lucknow had been laid in 
his grave, the Home Government, on receipt of the news 
of the crisis, appointed Henry Lawrence Provisional 
Governor-General of India " on the death, resignation, 
or coming away of Viscount Canning," an honour that had 
never before been paid to an officer of the Company's army. 

The triumphant story of the Defence of Lucknow is 
known to every one. " It was Henry Lawrence's foresight, 
humanly speaking," said one of the defenders,* " that 
saved every one of the garrison. But for him I do not 
believe that one would have escaped." This judgment 
is confirmed by the most distinguished member of the 
army that broke through the investing forces and brought 

1 The Sepoy War, vol. iii. pp. 519-520. 
^ The Indian Mutiny, vol. i. p. 437. 
* Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 336. 
^ Lives of Indian Officers, vol. ii. p. 328. 



298 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

out the heroic garrison." " The contemplation of the 
defence of Lucknow, and the realisation of the noble 
qualities it called forth in the defenders, cannot but excite 
in the breast of every British man and woman, as it did 
in mine, feelings of pride and admiration. But what 
impressed me more than even the glorious defence was 
the foresight and ability of the man who made the defence 
possible." 

The preservation of the English residents and garrison 
of Lucknow was the happy outcome of that " foresight 
and ability," but we must look beyond to gauge the far- 
reaching military importance of Sir Henry Lawrence's 
efficiency and promptness to act. Not only was the 
prestige of England upheld in the stronghold of the pandies, 
but an overwhelming concentration of the rebels at Delhi 
was made impossible. Had Lucknow been unprepared, 
a swarm of victory-flushed sepoys would have been let 
loose from Oudh, and the little army on the Delhi Ridge 
must have been swept away. The Punjab could not then 
have stood the strain. 

Five years before Sir Henry Lawrence had left the 
Punjab for ever, believing that his work there was ended; 
but his last achievement was to co-operate with his brother 
in the crowning triumph of the province. 

^ Lord Roberts, Forty-One'^ Years in India, vol. i. p. 349. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

[September i8^y-December 1858) 

JOHN LAWRENCE SAVES INDIA 

Nicholson's Last Fight — Effect of the Capture of Delhi — John 
Lawrence raises the Khalsa to Life — He appeals for Mercy in 
the Hour of Victory — Edwardes' Elimination of all Unchristian 
Principles Memorandum. 

" We have sent every man we could spare — perhaps more," 
Sir John Lawrence wrote to Lord Canning on September 
6. " We have raised for them Pioneers, Infantry, 
Cavalry. Nothing that we could think of has been wanting. 
Even the sand-bags for their batteries have been made up 
and sent down." The heavy siege-train from Ferozepore 
had reinforced Wilson's army, and its march down had 
given Nicholson the opportunity to win one of his most 
brilliant fights. Having heard that the Delhi rebels had 
despatched two large forces to waylay the siege-train, he 
had moved out swiftly with his irresistible column, and at 
Najafgarh had struck one of the heaviest blows of the war. 
" I wish I had the power of knighting you on the spot," 
wrote Sir John. 

Richard Lawrence had brought into camp two thousand 
men from Kashmir, raised by Gulab Singh and sent down 
by his son and successor. " Dick's Rosebuds " — to quote 
his brother's term — were hardly " first-class fighting men," 
but their presence on the British side was evidence that the 
Kashmir raja, whose unerring instinct for his own interests 
had been notorious, had, before he died, decided to " put 
his money " on the English horse. 

299 



300 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

At the suggestion of Edwardes, the Chief Commissioner 
had raised from the ranks of the canal workmen a strong 
regiment of Mazbi Sikhs ^ to act as sappers and miners 
under Baird Smith and Alexander Taylor, and he had no 
difficulty in enrolling more than a thousand men. The 
Kuki-Kheyls, one of the most truculent Pathan tribes, 
actually brought to Edwardes the full amount of a murder- 
fine which they had refused to pay when the English power 
was still unshaken, and there were other unmistakable 
signs that the outlook was brightening, and that a feeling 
in favour of the English now prevailed, a feeling impalpable 
and elusive perhaps, but none the less of good omen. 

Nicholson was known in the Delhi Field Force as " The 
Autocrat of all the Russias," but the name was used in no 
disapproving sense, for the hero-worshipping instincts of 
the soldiery were concentrated upon him. His presence 
there was worth far more than " the wing of a regiment," 
the value at which he had once been assessed by the Chief 
Commissioner, who was now in constant communication 
with him. Sir John knew the city intimately from the 
Delhi Gate to the Water Bastion, and as it was understood 
that Nicholson was to have command of the storming- 
columns, he placed his local knowledge at the service of 
the brigadier, who was too good a soldier to despise such 
aid, even from a civilian. " Should your Brigade go in at 
the Kashmir Gate," Lawrence wrote,^ " recollect that when 
you once pass the Octagon inside, you come to an open 
space in which the church stands. In advance of this open 
ground are two streets which lead onwards into the town. 

1 The title Mazbi (Religious) Sikhs was granted by Govind Singh 
to an outcaste tribe that had rescued the corpse of his father, Teg 
Bahadur, from the Mohammedans. They are very proud of the con- 
cession, and, though of aboriginal descent, have proved themselves 
almost equal to the Jat Sikhs as fighting-men. Since 1857 the 
Punjab pioneer regiments have been largely recruited from this 
caste. 

^ Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. ii. pp. 104-105. 



John Lawrence Saves India 301 

If you secure both houses, viz., Hamid Ah Khan's and 
Skinner's — you command both streets and are quite safe 
from a sudden attack, and in the open space I would 
counsel that you reform your men and get in your guns 
and advance with deliberation. After passing the old 
Residency, lately the College, you come to the old magazine 
and then over a bridge in the canal to the Palace. From 
the ground in front of the College and Magazine, which 
is higher than Selimghur, you could shell the Palace with 
great advantage, while, to the best of my recollection, 
guns from neither Selimghur nor the Palace could touch 
you. . . . 

" But if the town holds out, and the mutineers occupy 
the houses, we should seize the Jumma Musjid and the 
other mosque in the Chandni Chouk, which will serve as a 
fortress for our troops. The Lahore Gate of the City leads 
down the Chandni Chouk to the Palace. It is some eighty 
feet wide. Secure this street and the Jumma Musjid, and 
the mutineers cannot maintain themselves." 

Nicholson's letters expressed much impatience and 
dissatisfaction with General Wilson's want of decision, 
and he even hinted at the possibility of a step too drastic 
to have been contemplated by any other man. This was 
no less than an appeal to the army to depose the command- 
ing officer, but, happily, Wilson adopted in time the urgent 
advice of his engineers, with whose plans Nicholson was in 
accord. No longer hampered by the vacillation of their 
general, Baird Smith and Alexander Taylor pushed 
forward their siege-works, and constructed heavy batteries 
almost under the shadow of the Delhi walls. Brind and 
Tombs and their gunners seconded the exertions of the 
engineers, and on September 14, after a few days' bombard- 
ment, Delhi was stormed. The sepoys defended the town 
obstinately, and John Nicholson fell, mortally wounded, 
while rallying his men. Hard fighting continued for 

u 



302 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

several days, but on September 20 the British flag was 
seen above the Imperial Palace, and Delhi was won. 

During the defence of the Ridge and the storming of 
Delhi many heroic deeds were recorded and still more 
passed unnoticed, but the credit for the victory which broke 
the back of the Mutiny belongs essentially to four men — 
to Sir John Lawrence, who had, from the first, brought all 
his rare energy to bear upon this consummation ; to John 
Nicholson, the brilliant soldier and inspired leader of men ; 
to Colonel Baird Smith, the engineer, who, while broken 
down in health, planned the operations that prepared the 
way for the assault; and to Lieutenant Taylor,^ the 
executive engineer, who carried out the work so thoroughly 
— of whom Nicholson had said: " If I survive to-morrow, 
I will let all the world know that it was Alec Taylor who 
took Delhi." 

Mutiny reeled from the blow. As the loot from the Delhi 
palaces began to pass through their villages, the Punjabis, 
who had refused to credit the rumours, no longer doubted 
which cause to espouse. " All last night," wrote Edwardes, 
" from sunset to sunrise, Peshawur was a blaze of brilliant 
lamps and fireworks. . . . Every single house, large or 
small, in every street and lane was a mass of lamps." The 
demonstration was native and spontaneous. " Well, we 
have read of revolutions, and empires," said an old Pesha- 
wari, noted for his bitterness against the English, " but we 
admit that never yet was such a spectacle seen, as so small 

1 In June, Taylor was still at work on the Grand Trunk Road, not 
far from Rawul Pindi, until one day Mr. Thornton, the Commissioner, 
chanced to say, " Why, Taylor, you ought to be at Delhi, working 
in the trenches instead of on this road! " "I would give my eyes 
to be there," Taylor answered. " But my work is here, and I do 
not think it right to volunteer." Struck by the reply Thornton 
rode off to report it to his chief. " Send him," said Sir John, and 
Thornton rode back to inform Taylor that John Lawrence had 
ordered him to Delhi. " Looking round to some one who was near, 
Taylor said, quite simply, ' Have you got a sword? ' " and set ofi 
on his 700'mile ride. — Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 10. 



John Lawrence Saves India 303 

a handful of foreigners maintaining such an empire against 
its own army and not yielding a foot of territory to anyone."^ 

Peshawar and the Derajat had already proved an 
excellent recruiting field, and the news supplied a stimulus 
to enlistment. Edwardes confessed, at the risk of damaging 
the character of his district, that " crime was never so rare 
in the Valley as during this crisis," for all the outlaws had 
gone down to fight the " black men." One troop alone 
contained sixty of these brigands, and the chieftain that 
raised it expressed the general opinion that, " Whether 
they kill the poorbeahs or the poorbeahs kill them, it will 
be an equal service to the State." And now the Sikhs 
of the Man j ha hesitated no longer. They had played a 
waiting game, cherishing the hope that when the English 
should be exterminated by " John Pandy," who, greatly 
weakened in the process, would fall an easy victim to 
" John Singh," the re-animated Khalsa would be the 
dominating power in Hindustan. Though they did not at 
once abandon hope, they changed their plans. They were 
now willing to receive English arms, equipment, and train- 
ing, and to march against the poorbeah, confident that, 
when Englishman and Hindustani, worn out by the long 
death-struggle, should have exhausted all their resources, 
they alone in India would be left strong and ambitious 
But one factor had been overlooked. " An army from 
England never entered our calculations." - 

For eight years the Khalsa had been languishing; the 
Sikh women had tired of the sterner religion and were fast 
reverting to the more attractive rites of Hinduism, dragging 
the men after them. The eight years of peace in the Pun- 
jab had devastated the ranks of the " Disciples " in a far 
more thorough manner than had the bloody wars of 1846 

1 Memorials of Sir H. B. Edwardes. 

^ Meditations of a Sikh Soldier, written to the Friend of India, 
" in remembrance of the English boy who saved my life at fatal 
Gujerat." 



304 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

and 1849, ^o'" Sikhism is essentially a militant religion. 
But now " with one word Sir John Lawrence recalled the 
Khalsa to life. The machinery by which Ranjit Singh 
had created armies was set in motion by British hands and 
thousands of Jats and stalwart men flocked to the scene. 
More rapidly than the sacred pahul [the Sikh initiation 
ceremony] could be administered, came these new converts, 
thirsting for the spoil of Delhi and Hindustan. Priests 
grew fat, and the tramp of armed men resounded through 
the land, recalling to mind the good old times. Sikhs were 
manufactured just because Sikhs were in demand, and 
during three years there seemed no limit save our will to the 
supply." 1 Under British officers they poured down the 
Grand Trunk Road towards Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow, 
and at Fatehghar they found the English army from over 
the seas, and the vision of a more powerful Khalsa faded 
away. 

The part played by the Sikhs during the Mutiny crisis 
has been largely misunderstood, and far too much credit 
has been given to them for an enthusiastic loyalty that was 
never theirs, owing to the practice of classing all Punjabis 
indiscriminately as Sikhs — a short and easy but misleading 
term. The protected Sikh princes were gloriously loyal 
throughout, but, when the British were weakest, the men 
that responded to the call of John Lawrence and his 
lieutenants were mostly Punjabi Mussulmans — men of 
Hindu descent, whose forefathers had been forcibly con- 
verted — Pathan and Baluchi tribesmen from the Multan 
district and from the Afghan border, and Hindu Jats, who 
chose to call themselves Sikhs in time of war. The Sikhs 

1 Elasticity of the Sikh People, by the old Sikh quoted above. 
He was mistaken, however, in supposing that there was no check 
on the enUstment of Sikhs, for Sir John Lawrence was armed against 
the peril. " It strikes me," he wrote to Sir CoUn Campbell, " that 
there is some danger that our officers, in their horror of John Pandy, 
ma}' go into the other extreme and make too much of John Singh." 





A SIKH OF THE MANJHA. 
RISALDAR GURMUKH SINGH, 3rd Punjab Cavalry. 



John Lawrence Saves India 305 

in the Punjab regiments remained loyal and fought sturdily 
on the English side, but their loyalty was local and did not 
extend beyond their own officers, and not more than a few 
hundred strict Singhs enlisted until the English star was 
in the ascendant. 

It cannot therefore be said that the Sikhs were loyal 
through love of the Lawrences. A number of their chief 
men, no doubt, were actuated by affection and gratitude, 
and loyalty is contagious; but the Sikh is a calculating 
man, and before committing himself to either side he wished 
to make sure which would pay best. But it was certainly 
due to the Lawrence influence and prestige that the Khalsa 
did not rise against the alien rulers, that, though the Sikhs 
were not reconciled to their fallen state, there was no 
active discontent of which the intriguer could take 
advantage to excite the passions and appeal to the pre- 
judices of the peasantry. 

It was, however, well that the capture of Delhi was not 
delayed, even for a few days, for the Punjab was barely 
able to endure the strain. In the Murree hills the tension 
snapped even while the guns were battering down the 
l^lhi ramparts, and a more formidable insurrection broke 
out in the province of Multan on the day that the rebel 
stronghold was stormed. The Murree rising was easily 
suppressed, thanks to the early information obtained by 
Lady Lawrence who was there with her children; but 
the revolt at Gugara, midway between Lahore and Multan, 
spread rapidly, and the flame was fanned by the powerful 
Nawab of Bahawalpur, a large state to the south-east of the 
Multan province. Hitherto loyal in protestations, he now 
decided that the time had come to unmask, and he was 
already intriguing with the chiefs of the rebellious tribes 
when the news arrived that Delhi had fallen. With a 
promptitude equalling that displayed by the immortal 
Mr, Collins in acting upon Mr, Bennet's advice to stand 



306 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

by him who had most to give, the nawab again turned his 
coat and arrested the ringleaders. Though saved from 
ruin by his second act of treachery, his subsequent attempts 
to concihate John Lawrence were in vain. 

The rebels still overran Oudh and the North-West 
Provinces, but that Union Jack, floating over the Imperial 
Palace, set the minds of loyal men at rest. The fighting 
might be prolonged indefinitely, but final victory was now 
assured to the British arms. On all sides John Lawrence 
was acclaimed " The Saviour of India," and the recognition 
of his services was instant and universal and unanimous. 

"It is not our system, it is our men," said he, and, 
without doubt, he owed the completeness of his success to 
the officials whom he and his brother had trained. But 
of all the tributes paid to him as the foremost figure of the 
Mutiny year none was more hearty, none rang more true, 
than those of his subordinates, who — had it been possible 
to their nature — might with some justice have asked what 
John Lawrence could have done without their aid. But 
loyalty was in the air of the Punjab, and they were proud 
to shine with the reflection of their chief's glory. 

Some of them had never become quite reconciled to the 
change of masters; they had looked upon John as the 
usurper of his brother's throne, and had — ^in the words of 
Edwardes — " looked for the day when the king shall enjoy 
his own again." They respected and admired the strong, 
silent, just man who was now their leader, but the fascina- 
tion of the elder brother had brought out other sentiments 
than those of respect and admiration. A glance from 
him, a word of praise — even of rebuke — and he had gained 
another worshipper, whereas intimacy was needed to change 
into affection the respect that all men felt for John. But 
when the need arose he proved that he could lead as well 
as drive, could be tactful and patient as well as firm and 
stern, could stimulate and inspire as well as impel, and in 



John Lawrence Saves India 307 

the year 1857 ^^ won the affection of the most loyal of his 
brother's champions, so that none grudged him his meed of 
praise. On the day that the news arrived in Peshawar 
Edwardes wrote to him: "Sincerely do I congratulate 
you on this great success which has crowned your efforts 
for the last four months. Not a bayonet or a rupee has 
reached Delhi from Calcutta or England. It was been 
recovered by you and your resources with God's blessing." 

To this Lawrence replied: "Few men, in a similar 
position, have had so many true and good supporters 
around him. But for them what could I have done ? " 

Other prominent soldiers and civilians wrote to him to 
the same effect —that he was the man that had handled the 
ship through the storm, steered it through the shoals, and 
brought it into port, and the Governor-General's official 
report records that, " Through him Delhi fell, and the 
Punjab, no longer a weakness, became a source of strength." 

In a letter of warm congratulation Lord Dalhousie wrote 
from Malta: "... I would to God that your brother 
Henry had lived to enjoy the honours which would, un- 
doubtedly, have been accorded to him, and to share with 
your friends the pleasure which his warm and generous 
heart would have especially felt in witnessing the dis- 
tinction you were earning for yourself, side by side with 
him. But he rests in the death he would himself have 
wished to die, and his name will long live after him." ^ 

Sir John replied: "... My poor brother Henry died 
nobly at his post. To his intelligence and foresight the 
whole of the Lucknow garrison owe their lives. Nothing 
but these precautions could have enabled our people to 
make the stand they have done. ..." 

But when congratulations were being showered upon 
him, when his praises were being chanted through the 
length and breadth of the land. Sir John Lawrence was 
1 JBosworth Smith, vol. ii. pp. 183-185, 



3o8 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

content to have tried to do his duty, and he gave God the 
praise that his work had not been in vain. The Lawrences 
and their Punjabis " present the one conspicuous instance 
in Indian history of a body of British rulers and officers 
going to work definitely as Christian men . . . confessing 
Christ before the world," ^ and now, in Sir John's official 
report, occur these words: "To Him alone, therefore, be 
all the praise." It was not policy that saved India, said 
Montgomery — also in an official document — " The Lord 
our God, He it was." 

After the capture of Delhi, the city and district were 
transferred from the North-West Provinces and placed 
under the Punjab Administration, and another burden was 
added to the load already borne by the strong and willing 
horse. For four months he had spared no effort, left 
nothing undone, to compass the destruction of the rebels 
in Delhi. Now he came forward as the pacificator. 
Deeply religious — though reserved and heroically simple 
in expression— he aimed at establishing the policy of 
the conquerors upon Christian principles, that European 
and Asiatic might learn to forgive, that both should in 
time come to regard the horrors of the past as acts of frenzy 
rather than of deliberate cruelty. The ability to see the 
other side, to preserve a juster balance, generally goes 
with a strong sense of humour, and Sir John had at least 
as much sympathy with, and pity for, the sheep-like 
majority of the mutineers as anger against them; and 
though he would not spare the ringleaders, he stood up 
and spoke out for mercy, not vengeance; he preferred to 
set, rather than set forth, an example. 

" There is a Judge over both them and us," he wrote to 
the Government. " Inasmuch as we have been preserved 
from impending destruction by His mercy alone, we should 
be merciful to others." 

1 The History of the Chtirch Missionary Society, vol, ii. p. 201, 



John Lawrence Saves India 309 

The sepoys and budmashes of Delhi had fled from the 
city, and the few men that remained had probably not been 
actively hostile. But they were brown men, " niggers," 
whose skins bore witness against them: the victors had 
visited the scene of the massacre of the English women and 
children, and, during that delirium of retaliation, all that 
were not actually fighting on the English side were held 
to be against them, passive acquiescence in the restoration 
of the Mogul being construed as active hostility to the 
Government. The powers of life and death, granted to 
many subordinate officials, had been abused; every 
" nigger " was either a participator in the murders or an 
accomplice after the act, unless he could demonstrate his 
innocence. The onus of proof was upon him, not upon the 
prosecution. 

Sir John's powers in Delhi were limited, and he could not 
curtail the authority granted by Government. However, 
he did much to bring about a better state of things; he 
prevailed upon Lord Canning to withdraw this power from 
men acting alone, and insisted that the evidence in every 
case should be recorded, and that weekly returns should be 
submitted to him. A wild cry arose, demanding that Delhi 
should be razed to the ground, that its site should be 
ploughed up and sown with salt, that at least the Jumma 
Musjid — the noblest Mussulman temple in the world- 
should be cast down. The Chief Commissioner refused 
to give way, would not be turned from his purpose by 
clamour, and gave command that the holy places should be 
spared. He interceded for the inhabitants who had fled 
from Delhi, and advised that they should be allowed to 
return, but in this matter the majority against him was too 
strong. The Hindus were given permission to return after 
a time, but the Mohammedans were excluded until the year 

1859. 

In this crusade against vengeance Lord Canning gave 



3IO The Lawrences of the Punjab 

him unflinching support. The popular voice in England 
as in India howled for punishment, for " examples " ; 
distorted versions of the sufficiently horrible tragedies of 
Delhi and Cawnpore were granted ready credence, and the 
thoughtless and ill-balanced clamoured for a lesson that 
would strike awe into the breasts of the children's children. 
Those who had done least to uphold their country's honour 
in the face of danger, and those who had scouted the 
warnings and scoffed at the idea of any attempt by the 
sepoys to overthrow the English Raj, were, of course, 
the loudest. " Clemency " Canning they nick-named the 
Governor-General, because he declined to lose his head in 
emulation of their own condition. 

Sir John also urged the Governor-General to permit 
those disarmed sepoys, who had taken no part in the fight- 
ing, to return to their homes, and in time he was allowed 
to use his own discretion. He sent them off from the 
various cantonments in batches of sixty at once, and so, 
in the Punjab alone, he disposed of 15,000 men who, 
dangerous combined, were harmless in their own villages. 
He advised Lord Canning to grant " an amnesty in favour 
of the least guilty of the mutineers. ... It is much easier 
for people to advocate the destruction of all offenders than 
to show how this can be effected. Now that we have taken 
Delhi, beaten every large body of mutineers in the field, 
and are prepared to enter Oude again in force, we should 
simplify matters much if we issued a proclamation declaring 
that those mutineers who have not murdered their officers, 
or women or children, and who gave up their arms shall be 
allowed to go to their homes and live unmolested. . . . We 
could then deal more easily with the desperate characters. 
At present, all are held together from the very desperation 
of their condition. . . . Still we should not altogether 
forget that, as a ruling power, we have also our short- 
comings and want of foresight to answer for, We placed 



John Lawrence Saves India 3 i i 

temptation and opportunity before the mutineers, which 
it was difficult to resist. . . ." ^ 

Unhappily the suggestion was not taken advantage of 
until much harm had been done. 

On his advice the princes of Patiala, J hind, Nabha, and 
Kapurthala were rewarded with grants of land and 
honours, and those sepoys who had been staunch were 
all remembered by him.^ Even those who had been dis- 
armed, and had remained passively loyal in spite of the 
temptation to show resentment, were not forgotten. To 
ensure the comfort of all who had fought and suffered for 
the English cause he spared no pains, and he gave sympathy 
and help to the widows and orphans of the fallen, native 
as well as European. 

In spite of the abnormal demands made upon his reserve 
of strength during the four months of the siege his civil 
duties were never left to take care of themselves. He had 
carried on the administration of the province with almost 
as great efficiency as before the outbreak. During this 
period he had seen his wife once — a stolen visit ^ — and now 
that the hot season and the danger from the sepoys had 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 176. 

^ " Lambadar Roostum Khan and his brother Ali Mardan Khan 
furnished a number of Sowars mounted at their own expense, also 
a number of footmen during the crisis of 1857. These two men are 
deserving of the kind consideration of all British officers, and I hope 
they may always receive it. Ali Mardan Khan has taken service as 
a Dufiadar in the i6th Bengal Cavalry." — Copy of certificate signed 
by Major Rd. Lawrence, Officiating Military Secretary to the Punjab 
Government, and dated Lahore, February 7, 1859, and now in the 
possession of Dafadar Dost Muhammad, 3rd Punjab Cavalry. 
These acknowledgments of the Government's gratitude are still 
cherished as valuable heirlooms by the sons and grandsons of the 
men who gained them. 

^ I saw him during the first two months of the Mutiny on every 
day but one," said Mr. Thornton, the Commissioner of Rawul Pindi. 
" On that day I went as usual to his house and found him gone. 
He had actually slipped off to see his wife at Murri! It was a 
flagrant escapade. He had no excuse. But he couldn't help it," 
— Bosworth Smith, vol. i. p. 512, 



3 I 2 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

passed, her health gave way, and the}^ met only to part 
again. Lady Lawrence wished to take the risk, knowing 
how useful her help and companionship would be, but Sir 
John would not hear of it ; she must rejoin the children in 
England. 

" My husband," said Lady Lawrence,^ " looked very ill 
and worn after the long strain of anxiety. But his work 
never relaxed, nor did he give himself any rest." Though 
he longed to be in England he refused to quit his post 
until the country had settled down and its tangled 
affairs had been unravelled and the unavoidable arrears 
wiped off. 

On December 15, 1857, he assured Bartle Frere that, 
" I am ready to do anything I can for the public service, 
and, so long as I hold the helm here, will keep matters 
straight, under God's help. But I am growing old and 
weary, and often think that the time is approaching when 
I ought to make my bow and be off. Do what one can, 
little real progress is effected." ^ And to Currie eight 
months later: " With the exception of the month when I 
went to Calcutta, early in 1856, to bid Lord Dalhousie 
good-bye, I have not had a day's rest for nearly sixteen 
years. No human being, for a continuance, can bear the 
wear and tear of my post, doing the duty as it should be 
done with no greater aid than I receive, and not break 
down. Year by year, the work, instead of becoming less, 
has increased . . . more than half the new Bengal army 
has been raised, organised and equipped by me. Then, 
the Delhi territory has been placed under me. All this is 
very honourable, and I am far from shrinking from the 
load it entails ; and had I been made Lieutenant-Governor 
of the country with an adequate staff at my command, I 
should not have minded. . . . 

" I am glad to see by the last Overland Mail news that 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 165, ^ Ibid, vol. ii. p. 217. 



John Lawrence Saves India 3 i 3 

Henry's son has at last received the honours due to his 
father's great merits. Henry's death was an even greater 
calamity to his country than to his family. What would 
not be the value of his services at the present crisis ? We 
sorely want such men. We have not yet conquered India. 
And, even when this has been accomplished, a still harder 
task — that of pacifying the people and healing old wounds 
— is before us. It is a task which the bravest and best may 
shrink from. It is one in which a great man may break 
his heart and lose his life, and which, even should he by 
God's help accomplish it, will never be appreciated." ^ 

In the autumn of 1858 one of his wishes was realised, 
for the Punjab was made a Lieutenant-Governorship — a 
change that brought with it, in addition to the improved 
status, an increased staff and various other advantages. 

The losses of the war had brought about great changes 
of personnel in the Punjab, and the year 1858 witnessed 
a gradual redistribution of officers. Among others Sir 
John had to part with Montgomery who succeeded Sir 
Henry as Chief Commissioner of Oudh; and Richard 
Lawrence, having taken leave of his " Rosebuds," became 
Military Secretary to his brother. The important ap- 
pointments conferred upon men trained in the Punjab 
school led to protests from the older provinces, and Lord 
Canning's reply announcing his intention of promoting 
more Punjabis was more complimentary to the Lawrence 
influence than satisfactory to the rejected. 

In the year 1858 the Government of India passed from 
the East India Company to the Crown, and, in view of 
the coming re-organisation of the services, Herbert 
Edwardes published his famous Memorandum on the 
Elimination of all Unchristian Principles from the Govern- 
ment of British India. He was firmly convinced that the 
Company, in its zeal for religious neutrality, had been less 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. pp. 223-225. 



314 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

than fair to Christianity, and he argued that the ready 
credence given to stories so absurd as the conversion to 
Christianity by means of bullock-bone flour and greased 
cartridges was largely due to native ignorance of Christian 
doctrine. He believed that, had the Bible been given the 
same status as the Koran and the books of the Brahmans 
in the Government schools, there might have been a leaven 
of knowledge sufficient to have prevented the panic of the 
ignorant. The Bible, he maintained, had been condemned 
in the schools through fear lest its teaching should offend 
the religious prejudices of the people ; and the Mutiny had 
demonstrated that, because the natives had been dis- 
couraged from becoming more intimate with Christian 
principles, a woefully false impression had prevailed. 
Among other arguments he pointed out that mission 
schools, in which the Bible was taught, were more popular 
than Government schools even in the strongholds of 
bigotry. 

This " exclusion of the Bible as a class-book ... is, 
perhaps, our capital offence, because it is one of deliberate 
commission." Nine other " unchristian elements " were 
enumerated. Before sending the memorandum to Lord 
Shaftesbury for publication in England, he submitted 
copies to some of his colleagues in the Punjab, with the 
object of forcing their hands and eliciting their views for 
the benefit of the English nation. 

Donald Macleod was one of the first to express any 
opinion. Edwardes considered his letter to be " well 
weighed, and just, and mild, and lowly; and outspoken 
in a gentle voice. It is a perfect picture of himself, and 
I rejoice to have fulfilled the office of a pump, and drawn 
so much sweet water to the surface. It does not go quite 
so far as mine in some respects, but goes a great way, and 
has some valuable new propositions, and is altogether a 
beautiful expression of Christian sentiment. The angelic 



John Lawrence Saves India 3 i 5 

tone of it contrasts very favourably with the vehement 
and often ironic tone of mine." 

" What a splendid article Edwardes has written on 
Christian Government!" said Montgomery. "What a 
sensation it will create at home ! " 

The head of the Punjab Education Department was 
Mr. William Arnold, son of Arnold of Rugby. He pro- 
tested against the introduction of the Bible as a class- 
book on the ground that the English were merely the 
trustees of the Hindus, a proposition which Sir John 
Lawrence promptly controverted. " Mr. Macleod has 
most justly observed," he wrote, " that many of Mr. 
Arnold's arguments are based on the assumption that the 
British Government stands in the same relation towards 
the people of India as a representative Government stands 
towards its people. ... If, by being trustees for the 
people, we are supposed to be bound invariably by the will 
of the people, then we are not, the Chief Commissioner 
thinks, trustees in that sense. We have not been elected 
or placed in power by the people, but we are here through 
our moral superiority, by the force of circumstances, by 
the will of Providence. This alone constitutes our charter 
to govern India. 

" In doing the best we can for the people, we are bound 
by our conscience, and not by theirs. Believing that the 
study of the Bible is fraught with the highest blessings, 
we, of course, do desire to communicate those blessings 
to them if we can." 

To Arnold he wrote: " I believe that, provided neither 
force nor fraud were used, Christ would assuredly approve 
of the introduction of the Bible. We believe that the 
Bible is true, that it is the only means of salvation. Surely 
we should lend our influence in making it known to our 
subjects. ... I believe that, provided we do it wisely and 
judiciously, the people will gradually read that book. I 



3i6 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

have reason to suppose this because the missionaries are 
successful. ..." 

In the official reply to Edwardes he stated that, "... 
In respect to the teaching of the Bible in Government 
Schools and Colleges, I am to state that, in the Chief-Com- 
missioner's judgment, such teaching ought to be offered 
to all those who may be willing to receive it . . . that it 
should be taught in class wherever we have teachers fit to 
teach it and pupils willing to hear it. . . . So long as the 
attendance is voluntary there will be boys to attend ; but, 
if it be obligatory, then suspicion is aroused, and there is 
some chance of empty benches. Moreover, as a matter of 
principle, the Chief-Commissioner believes that, if any- 
thing like compulsion enters into our system of diffusing 
Christianity, the rules of that religion itself are disobeyed 
and that we shall never be permitted to profit by our 
disobedience. ..." 

On some of the other points raised Sir John could not 
agree with Colonel Edwardes — the proposed resumption 
of ancient " grants on alienations from the public revenue 
for native religions," continued by the Company after 
the absorption of states ; the discontinuance of the present 
recognition of the native holy-days in the public offices; 
and the argument that " in our criminal and civil ad- 
ministration we still adhere too strictly to the Hindu and 
Mohammedan laws." He contended that in these and 
similar matters Edwardes was not sufficiently tolerant of 
native prejudices. 

Well pleased, however, that he had such strong support 
for his main proposition, Edwardes said: "It is a noble 
expression of the duty of the Indian Government to do 
whatever Christianity requires, at whatever cost; and it 
only differs from mine as to what Christianity does demand 
of us, and what it does 7iot. It stops a long way short of 



John Lawrence Saves India 317 

my proposals. Still, on the whole, it is a fine manifesto, 
and I rejoice to have elicited it." 

Though Delhi had fallen on September 20, 1857, the 
Mutiny was not finally stamped out before the spring of 
the year 1859, when the Nana Sahib and his wretched 
followers were swept into, and finally lost in, the jungles of 
the Nepal Terai. 



CHAPTER XXV 

(1859-1869) 

VICEROY OF INDIA 

Honours — Reception in England — Appointed Viceroy — The Orissa 
Famine — Crisis in Bombay — Public Works — Tenancy Acts — 
Relations with Secretaries of State — His Simplicity — Calumnies 
— His Durbars — Raised to the Peerage. 

Sir John Lawrence had felt that while Mutiny still dared 
to raise its head he could not be spared from the Punjab, 
however great the longing to go home and the need for 
rest, and having obtained Montgomery's appointment as 
his successor, on February 26, 1859, he left Lahore for 
England. In recognition of his Mutiny services he had 
been made a G.C.B., a baronet, and a Privy Councillor; 
the Freedom of the City of London had been conferred upon 
him, and the East India Company had granted him a 
pension of ;^2000 a year, but the people of England felt 
that these honours and rewards were insufificient. " Your 
name and services are in every one's mouth," Lord Stanley 
wrote. " Be prepared for such a reception in England as 
no one has had for twenty years." ^ 

The great Punjabi was welcomed by the English nation 
with a tribute of admiration the more worthy of acceptance 
that, as nearly two years had passed since the date of his 
triumph, the acclamations could not be mistaken for the 
clamour of an indiscriminating and sensation-loving mob. 
In addition to the ceremony at the Guildhall, the Honorary 
Degrees of the chief universities were conferred upon him ; 
* Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 244. 
318 




_2^^<a^ ^^IZ^x^-ci^-i 



Viceroy of India 3 1 9 

he was welcomed to Windsor where the Queen and the 
Prince Consort delighted to honour him ; and he received 
an address signed by some eight thousand of the most influ- 
ential persons in the land. A deep impression had been 
made upon the public mind by his outspoken expression of 
opinion on the duty of Christians in India, and, in present- 
ing the address, Dr. Tait (then Bishop of London) referred 
to and quoted from this declaration. " You laid down the 
principle," said he, " that ' having endeavoured solely to 
ascertain what is our Christian duty, we should follow it 
outto the uttermost undeterred by any consideration.' . . . 
You have recorded your conviction that Christian things 
done in a Christian way will never alienate the heathen. . . . 
These words are memorable. Their effect will be happy 
not only on your age but on ages to come." 

" All we did was no more than our duty and even our 
immediate interest," said Lawrence in acknowledging the 
tribute to his services. " It was no more than the neces- 
sities of our position impelled us to attempt. Our sole 
chance of escape was to resist to the last. The path of 
duty, of honour, and of safety was clearly marked out for 
us. . . . To use the words of my heroic brother at Lucknow, 
it was incumbent on us never to give in. We had no retreat, 
no scope for compromise. That we were eventually 
successful against the fearful odds which beset us, was 
alone the work of the great God who so mercifully vouch- 
safed His protection." 

But, though not immune from the " last infirmity of 
noble minds," the glare of publicity repelled rather than 
attracted him, and his secretary, Mr. Brandreth, has told 
of his master's alarm and indignation when he threatened, 
in jest, to inform the Mayor of Dover of the hour of the 
hero's departure from Calais. The role of social lion was 
distasteful to him, and he held most dear the hours devoted 
to his wife and children. 



320 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

These four years in England were among the happiest 
of his hfe. Before leaving India he had been appointed a 
member of the newly-formed Council of India, and though 
a sense of duty led him to accept, he grudged the time spent 
at the India Office. While Chief Commissioner of the 
Punjab he had expressed a wish to retire from public life 
and turn " farmer or grazier," and now he seemed near 
to the realisation of his ambition. But it was not to be. 
Canning's successor. Lord Elgin, died suddenly, and on 
November 30, 1863, Sir Charles Wood, who had succeeded 
Lawrence's friend Lord Stanley as Secretary of State for 
India, called to ask his acceptance of the Viceroyalty. 

Forty-seven years before. Lord Palmerston, then a 
secretary at the War Office, had signed the letter that 
refused Colonel Alexander Lawrence's petition for the fuU 
pension to which he was entitled. In 1857 the same 
statesman had nominated one son, Henry, as Provisional 
Governor-General of India, and now the highest office 
under the Crown was offered by him to a younger son, an 
offer acclaimed by the voice of the people, who, accepting 
him as " a great statesman, an unrivalled administrator, 
a colossal workman, a genuine Englishman, a brave 
Christian, a grand pillar of our country, and a glory to its 
public life," ^ had, indeed, resented what they rightly 
deemed the inadequate official recognition of his ser- 
vices. 

He did not wish to go. " The Governor-Generalship is 
too good a post for a fellow like me," he had said to Sir 
Colin Campbell, who had once expressed the hope that he 
would eventually attain the position. But a check to the 
British arms on the frontier — the Umbeyla Campaign — 
seemed likely to kindle a serious tribal war, and his know- 
ledge of, and prestige on, the border were urged as reasons 
for compliance. He hearkened to the stern voice of Duty 

* Sir^Herbert Edwardes in The Leisure Hour, January 5, i860. 



Viceroy of India 321 

and accepted the offer before consulting his wife, lest her 
grief should weaken his resolution. 

" It has been happily determined," said The Times, " to 
break through the charmed circle which has so long re- 
stricted the ofQce of Governor-General to the Peerage, and 
to send out to the Empire which was formed by the 
exertions of Robert Clive and Warren Hastings, not only 
a commoner but a commoner wholly unconnected with 
any family of the English aristocracy. The person, how- 
ever, on whom the choice of the Government has rested 
is a man stamped by the hand of Nature with the truest 
impress of nobility, and though not born to inherit 
aristocratic titles, is peculiarly calculated to create them. 
Every one will recognise from this description that the new 
Governor-General of India is Sir John Lawrence." 
^ He returned to India in better health than he had en- 
joyed for many years, sanguine but under no illusion. As 
a young man in a subaltern position — in charge of the 
Jalandar Doab — he had determined to " put his stamp " 
on the country, and now, called to the chief command, 
cheered by his reception at Calcutta, assured of the glad 
support of his old Punjabis, he would, please God, so 
order affairs " that in after times people may look back 
and recall my Raj with satisfaction." Disappointment 
was, however, to be his portion. Not the bitter mortifica- 
tion of utter failure, nor the shattering of his reputation, 
but the distressing reflection that much more might have 
been accomplished had his hands been more free, had 
circumstances been less antagonistic. Dalhousie and the 
other Governors-General under whom he had served had 
not been tied to the end of a cable ; he himself had made 
his name ring through the world when cut off from higher 
authority and compelled to play " off his own bat," to 
quote one of his pet phrases. Yet though his Viceroy alty 
was not marked by any event of striking political import- 



322 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

ance, he did much for India's welfare, and his influence 
upon Anglo-Indian " tone " was felt long after his departure. 
His reforms bore fruit ; the march of progress was acceler- 
ated ; the lot of the ryot was improved, but there were no 
fireworks and limelight to dazzle the eyes and call forth 
the plaudits of the mob. The two wars of his reign — the 
Bhotan War and the Black Mountain Expedition — were 
brought to a conclusion without the accompaniment of 
any brilliant victory or triumph to appeal to the popular 
imagination, and he had to meet adverse conditions 
against which he was sometimes powerless. 

The awful suffering and loss of life caused by famine 
and flood in Orissa could not be — and were not — charged 
to his account. The executive authority rested with the 
Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, whom Sir John Lawrence 
sent down to Orissa to examine and report, and the Viceroy 
was bound to accept his official assurance that there was no 
contingency for which the local Government was not 
prepared, no difficulty with which they would be unable 
to cope. When he became convinced that the replies to 
his inquiries and the response to his exhortations were 
unsatisfactory, and when his confidence in the ability of 
the local authorities to appreciate the gravity of the crisis 
had been shaken, his promptness, energy, and resolution 
once more demonstrated that he was the same John 
Lawrence who had ruled the Punjab and stemmed the 
flood of mutiny. But the evil was done; the monsoon 
prevented the landing of relief-ships; the floods that 
succeeded the drought cut off communications by land, 
and one million people perished. 

In the House of Commons the action of the Lieutenant- 
Governor of Bengal was strongly condemned, but the 
Viceroy was exonerated from blame. Sir Stafford North- 
cote, the Secretary of State for India, wrote : ^ " There was 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 363. 



Viceroy of India 323 

a very general feeling of sympathy with yourself personally ; 
and I hope you will allow me to say that, after carefully 
reading all that has come before me, I receive the im- 
pression that there is no one in England or in India who 
more entirely deserves our sympathy under this sad 
calamity than your Excellency. It is cruel indeed that 
such a visitation should have come upon the land when it 
was under the charge of one so peculiarly distinguished 
for his affection for the people. At the same time, I cannot 
help feeling some consolation in the thought that we shall 
have the advantage of your counsel and assistance in the 
endeavours which must now be made to turn the lesson 
to profit." 

The second blow to the Lawxcnce administration came 
from the Bombay side, and in this case also circumstances 
were too strong for the Viceroy. The American War, 
by closing the main source of the cotton supply, created 
a demand for the Indian article, and a period of unheard-of 
prosperity led to reckless speculation of which the company 
promoter took advantage. The example set by Bombay 
was followed — with less abandon — in other towns. Then 
cotton, which had gone up from £44 a ton to £189, rapidly 
fell almost to normal, and one bank after another came 
down with a crash, the shock being felt throughout 
Hindustan. 

These catastrophes crippled the Governor-General's 
resources, impoverished his treasury, caused delay in the 
construction of public works, and must have weighed very 
heavily upon one so strenuously devoted to the welfare of 
his people. As yet, however, no blame was imputed to 
him, no attempt made to depreciate the value of his 
services to India. That came later. 

Four of his five budgets showed deficits, and as he had 
always held as an article of faith — almost equal in import- 
ance to that which forbade arrears of work — that expendi- 



324 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

ture should not exceed income, his disappointment at the 
apparent failure to practise as he had preached will be 
understood. Yet few were found to blame him when, 
for a time, he allowed a favourite maxim to go by the 
board. From the financial standpoint alone, to spend 
freely on irrigation — and get the money's worth — would 
prove less expensive than another Orissa famine; to 
increase the efficiency of the European army in India 
than another Mutiny; to build barracks in accordance 
with the plans of experts in sanitation — " palaces " the 
scoffers termed them — than to invite an epidemic to kill 
off the costly British soldier. Railways, canals, telegraphs, 
roads, schools, hospitals, and gaols, costly sanitary reforms 
in Calcutta and other towns, the re-organisation of the 
native police and magistracy, all would pay for themselves 
in time, and though his work might fail to dazzle the 
popular mind, which demands the outward and visible 
signs of success for to-day and would let the morrow take 
care of itself, the benefit would sooner or later be felt, and 
he would have done his duty. He spent £5,000,000 upon 
barracks and ^£26, 000,000 upon railways. ^ 

Though the expenditure increased from forty-six millions 
sterling to more than fifty-four millions, the fact did not 
shake his popularity: his proposals for raising the money 
did. He wished to renew the income-tax which would 
leave the hand -to -mouth -existing ryot untouched, and 
would fall upon the planters and traders, European, Hindu, 
and Parsee, and the wealthy classes of every nationality. 
Thereupon rose a shrill scream of protestation, and, to 
judge from the tone of the Anglo-Indian press, John 

1 The report for the Home Government on the subject of railways 
was drawn up by Colonel Strachey of the Public Works Depart- 
ment, one of Lawrence's best subordinates. The Viceroy read 
through the document, admired its technicalities, and observed 
to its author as he signed it: " What a clever chap they will think 
me at home! " — Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 349. 



Viceroy of India 325 

Lawrence's unequalled services were forgotten. He 
smarted under the abuse, but was not turned from his 
purpose. In Council, however, he was defeated, and had 
to be content with a compromise, a " licence-tax," less 
thorough and less fair in its incidence. 

He brought forward and carried important measures 
which defined the relations between landowners and 
tenants and safeguarded the rights of the cultivators. 
The first of these, the Punjab Tenancy Act, placed the 
chaotic question of land tenure in the Punjab upon a 
more satisfactory basis. A Bill dealing with tenant right 
in Oudh, where the conditions were dissimilar, raised 
another storm of opposition from the talukdars and from 
European landowners in Bengal. He appealed to the 
Home Government, obtained its support, and, though 
forced to compromise in order to conciliate the objectors, he 
was able to pass an Act that has since worked smoothly. 

Sir John's relations with the successive Secretaries of 
State for India — Sir Charles Wood, Lord de Grey (now 
Marquis of Ripon), Lord Cranborne (the late Marquis of 
Salisbury), and Sir Stafford Northcote— were cordial and 
sympathetic; and he was ever treated by them with the 
deference due to a hero. Lord Cranborne's racy letters 
he compared to a stirrup-cup, so stimulating was their 
effect upon him when jaded and depressed. Unfortunately, 
however, his unpopularity among certain classes was un- 
doubted, but though his calumniators had the power of 
making their opposition both heard and felt, the agitation 
was on the surface, more loud than deep, and was mainly 
confined to Calcutta and the Gangetic Provinces. He 
remained the hero of the Punjab. He attempted, indeed, 
to model the whole country upon the administration of 
that province, and was abused because of his preference 
for Punjabis in all departments of both services. 

In a letter to the Secretary of State he alludes to such 



326 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

remonstrances and points out that, as the Punjab has for 
many years been a training-ground for the best type of 
officer, the v/ork-loving, energetic man, desirous of, and 
fitted to bear, the burden of responsibihty, " it is not easy 
to select men of mark, who are not, in some degree, open 
to this reproach. But, if I know myself at all, I believe 
that the sole motive I have had in view is the public service, 
and that, for all appointments of any real importance, I 
have selected officers only for their approved merits. 
I know not a single instance in which any of these men 
have failed to do justice to my selection. I claim no merit 
in this way ; for any other conduct, in my difficult position, 
would be simply suicidal. But, at any rate, I do not 
deserve the obloquy which has been cast upon me. No 
man, however, in high position, who does not help those 
who have done him service by doing well that of the State, 
is fitted for command." ^ 

He never, however, allowed motives of friendship to 
influence an appointment, for jobbery was especially 
abhorrent to his nature. " ' Why don't you give me the 
post ? ' said a very near relative to him once ; ' I am as 
fit for it as anybody else.' ' That's just it,' replied the 
Governor-General ; ' you are as fit as anybody else, 
but as you are a near relative, you ought to be better 
fitted for it than any one else, to justify me in giving it 
to you.' " 

His opponents were not scrupulous in method or in 
language, and they tried to hurt. His disregard of vice- 
regal precedent they held up to ridicule, and sneered at 
what they chose to consider his affectation of simplicity, 
pretending to regret that he should so degrade the dignity 
of his high office. One of his crimes was a preference for 
walking about unattended, all well-regulated Governors- 
General having been in the habit of driving or riding under 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 342. 



Viceroy of India 327 

escort. In the early days of his Viceroyalty a sentry kept 
him at bayonet's point from entering his own palace. 
The sepoy had too high an opinion of what was due from 
a Governor-General to give heed to the absurd story that 
the simply-dressed man on foot could be the great Jan 
Larens.^ One exceptionally hot Sunday he considerately 
dismissed six of the eight troopers of his escort, and in 
reply to the staff-officer's protest on the score of official 
dignity, he declared that, " If I can't go to church with two 
troopers as my escort, I am not fit to be Governor-General 
of India." 

The old Punjab habit of working unencumbered by coat, 
waistcoat, or collar, and with shirt-sleeves turned up, 
clung to him still, and proved another ground of offence. 
Great scandal was caused by his reception in slippers of a 
" deputation of Calcutta dignitaries." On learning from 
his secretary that sOme of the magnates had regarded the 
oversight as an affront, he exclaimed, " Why, Hathaway, 
they were quite new and good slippers ! " ^ 

The more unscrupulous of his opponents seized upon 
these stories, and — having added a smack of the grotesque — 
sent them forth again to persuade the world that Sir John 
Lawrence was a boor. Imagine Dalhousie receiving an 
influential deputation in his slippers ! refused admittance 
by his sentry! They failed in their object. The Viceroy's 
" heroic simplicity " was known from Peshawar to Calcutta, 
and as the clown depicted by the hostile press bore no 
resemblance to the real John Lawrence, little harm was 
done. 

Then his depredators grew less particular about the 
foundation of fact. In spite of his well-known generosity 
they dared to accuse him of meanness — practically of an 
attempt to make a profit out of the viceregal allowance, 
because he had had the courage to abolish certain offices 

1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. pp. 282-283. * Ibid. vol. ii. p. 290. 



328 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

in the palace that were neither useful nor ornamental — 
expenses continued because they had been begun. The 
viceregal dinners and entertainments were condemned 
as " cheap and nasty," the wines said to be inferior to his 
predecessor's, and — after his departure — not to be com- 
pared with those of his successor, the truth being that 
he had bought up Lord Elgin's stock, and had sold his own 
surplus to Lord Mayo.^ 

But, though pomp and ostentation were uncongenial to 
his nature. Sir John Lawrence was never indifferent to 
their value at the proper time and place. He knew to 
how great extent externals count in the Oriental mind, and 
was not prepared altogether to ignore the Hindu axiom 
that power and pageantry go hand in hand. His durbars 
at Lahore, Agra, and Lucknow were made to overshadow in 
splendour those of all previous Governors-General. 

At Lahore he was surrounded by old friends and well- 
tried comrades; his schoolfellow Montgomery was Lieu- 
tenant-Governor ; and there were the princes and chieftains 
of the Punjab and of the frontier states and tribes who 
had stood by him in the hour of trial. 

In the course of his speech at Agra he reminded the 
assembled potenates that, " The art of governing wisely 
and well is a diiilicult one, which is only to be attained by 
much thought, and care, and labour. Few Kings and Chiefs 
in Hindustan have possessed the necessary qualifications 
because they have not taken the precaution in their youth 
to learn how to study and to act for themselves. Nor 
have they cared to have their sons, those who were to 
succeed them, well instructed and carefully trained. 
Hence it has so often happened, that, after a Chief has 
passed away, he has not been remembered as a good and 
wise ruler. Great men, when living, often receive praise 
from their friends and adherents for virtues which they do 
1 Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 286. 



viceroy of India 329 

not possess, and it is only after this life is ended that the 
real truth is told. Of all fame that such men can acquire, 
that alone is worth having which is accorded to a just and 
beneficent ruler. The names of conquerors and heroes 
are forgotten. But those of virtuous and wise Chiefs 
live for ever," And he assured them that " the British 
Government will honour that chief most who excels in the 
good management of his people; who does most to put 
down crime, and improve the condition of his country." 
When the Lucknow durbar was over, as 

The tumult and the shouting dies, 
The captains and the kings depart, 

John Lawrence visited the room in which his brother had 
been struck down, and stood for some time by the simple 
tomb in the Residency grounds, alone with his thoughts. 

In the summer of 1867 he contemplated resigning, 
" having been suffering a good deal of late from my old 
complaint in -my head. ... I am not at all sure that I 
shall not break down." Moreover, Lady Lawrence "is in 
delicate health, and must go home." However, he decided 
to stay on, but by the time that his term had run its course 
his health had utterly broken down and he was glad to 
welcome Lord Mayo, his successor. 

He landed in England in March 1869 a worn-out man, 

though but fifty-eight years old, and shortly after his 

arrival he was raised to the peerage with the title " Baron 

Lawrence of the Punjab and of Grately." ^ 

1 Grately was the name of a small estate left to him on the death 
of his sister, Mrs. Hayes. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

(1869-1879) 

THE LAST YEARS OF JOHN LAWRENCE 

Home Life — The London School Board — Tributes to Missionary- 
Work — Miss Caster's Reminiscences — The Forward Policy — 
He condemns the Government's Afghan Policy — His Death. 

Lord Lawrence's official connection with India was over, 
and his ideal of domestic happiness at last seemed possible 
of attainment. And in a measure it was attained, though 
the realisation of the day-dreams of the stifling kutcheri 
was only partial, for the children whom he had loved to 
gather round him, in whose romps he had joined with a 
zest hardly less than their own, had grown up and were 
dispersed.^ 

During the parents' last absence from England they had 
lived at Southgate with their aunt Letitia and their cousin 
Honoria, the daughter of Sir Henry Lawrence. On the 
death of Mrs. Hayes, Sir Herbert and Lady Edwardes had 
generously taken charge of the Southgate house so that 
Lady Lawrence might remain another year with her 
husband. The family now removed to Queen's Gate, 
Kensington, and in 1871 Brockett Hall, Hertfordshire, 
became their country home. 

Though fairly regular in his attendance at the House of 
Lords, Lord Lawrence took little part in debate. He was 

^ Nine children were living at this date — four sons, John, Henry, 
Charles Napier, and Bertie, and five daughters, Kate, Emily, Alice 
Margaret, Mary, and Maude. A son and daughter had died in 
infancy. The eldest, Kate (married in 1868 to Colonel Randall), 
was born in 1843, the youngest, Maude, in 1864. 

330 



The Last Years of John Lawrence 331 

no orator, and, in common with most men of prompt and 
decisive action and of administrative ability, he distrusted 
overmuch fluency of language, though he listened with 
admiration, and some envy, to genuine eloquence. Mr. 
Gladstone, writing to express the pleasure that Lawrence's 
acceptance of a peerage had given him, had expressed the 
opinion that the House of Lords was to be congratulated ; 
and that the peers themselves endorsed the Premier's 
tribute was made manifest by the cheers that rose from 
all parts of the House to greet his first speech. 

In politics a moderate Liberal, he was never a strong 
party man. One of the first measures of importance upon 
which he was called to vote was the Bill for the Disestab- 
lishment of the Church of Ireland, and, as an Irishman, 
says Sir Richard Temple, " he followed with keen but 
melancholy interest the important debates which ensued, 
without however taking any part in them. He voted 
for the second reading, in the belief that resistance to the 
main principle of the measure had become hopeless in the 
circumstances, and that it only remained for the friends 
of the Church in the House of Lords to try and make the 
terms of disestablishment more favourable to her." 

In the year 1870 Mr. Forster's Education Act came into 
force, and Lord Lawrence allowed himself to be nominated 
as a candidate for the first London School Board; and, 
being elected by a large majority, he was appointed chair- 
man of the board. As Head of the Punjab and as Viceroy 
of India he had done his utmost to encourage the spread of 
education, and in England he had given a hearty support 
to the schools at Grately and Southgate. His appreciation 
of the benefit that would be conferred upon the nation by 
Mr. Forster's Act impelled him to throw himself into the 
work of the board with so much zest as to give rise to 
uneasiness in the minds of friends, who feared the conse- 
quence of so severe a tax upon his strength. 



332 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

He presided over the weekly meetings of the board with 
wisdom and tact, listening to much futile outpouring of 
words without giving a sign of the impatience he must 
have felt, always throwing the weight of his influence on 
the side of toleration and moderation, always seeking to 
combine what was best in the ideas and proposals of 
opposing members when these were not fundamentally 
antagonistic. His belief in the necessity for religious 
instruction as the basis of true education was decided and 
uncompromising, and he prevailed. Unfortunately the 
fears entertained by those who knew and loved him best 
were soon justified, and he was compelled, by lack of sleep, 
to give himself a holiday. After a three months' tour in 
France and Italy with his wife, he resumed his duties on 
the board until the end of its three years' term, when he 
reluctantly decided not to offer himself for re-election. He 
had been able to give an impetus to the Act's career of 
usefulness ; he must leave the carrying-on of the work to 
others. The wisdom of th'e decision was, unhappily, only 
too evident, and the first chairman of the London School 
Board retired amid general regret, expressed ungrudgingly 
by both parties on the board. 

Having accepted the office of vice-president of the 
Church Missionary Society he frequently attended its 
committee and public meetings, and his testimonies to 
the value of missionary effort in India did much to 
strengthen the faith of many earnest Christians who had 
become disheartened by the apparent lack of impression 
made upon India's myriads. His words are still quoted 
as the witness of one who had had unique opportunities 
of judging, whose insight and discrimination were enthusi- 
astically acknowledged, who was known to weigh his words 
carefully, and who would never descend to convey a false 
impression for the sake of compliment. At a Wesleyan 
missionary meeting he said : "I believe that, notwith- 



The Last Years of John Lawrence 333 

standing all that the people of England have done to 
benefit India (that is, by philanthropic effort), the 
missionaries have done more than all other agencies 
combined. . . . But such has been the effect of their 
earnest zeal, untiring devotion, and of the excellent 
example which they have universally shown, that in spite 
of the great masses of the people being opposed to their 
doctrine, they are, as a body, popular in the country. I 
have a great reverence and regard for them, both personally 
and for the sake of the great cause in which they are 
engaged." 

From early childhood his eyes had been a source of un- 
easiness; in his sixty-fifth year they were the cause of 
great anxiety and intense pain; he was no longer able to 
read, and the result of several consultations with specialists 
was discouraging. In July 1876 an unsuccessful operation 
was followed by " a long weary time of blindness and agony, 
borne with the most wonderful sweetness and patience." ^ 
A third operation, some months later, partially restored 
his sight, but he had lost the use of one eye for ever. 

As he grew older the tender simplicity of his nature 
became more abundantly evident, though the apparent 
sternness was never wholly laid aside. Miss Gaster, his 
private secretary, tells ^ how, in his drives from Brockett 
Hall to the station, he would never pass a woman, whose 
age or burden seemed to make the walk a toil, without 
stopping the carriage and compelling her to enter, " how- 
ever dirty or hot " she might be. One Sunday, after a 
strong wind had wrought havoc among his trees, he led out 
the active members of the household to gather the scattered 
branches, tie them in bundles, and drag them through the 
park to present to the old women who kept the lodge-gates. 
To illustrate his " rooted dislike to waste of any kind," 

1 Lady Lawrence, Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. p. 466. 
* Bosworth Smith, vol. ii. pp. 470-474. 

y 



334 T^^ Lawrences of the Punjab 

Miss Gaster says that, " Very soon after I made his acquaint- 
ance he ascertained that I was not of a saving disposition. 
My spending days came to an abrupt conclusion. Part 
of my salary was kept back nolens volens, five per cent, 
allowed on it, and my finances put on a firm basis." While 
taking his daily walk with her shortly before his last illness, 
he had to confess that, " I feel so worn out, I can hardly 
stagger along." They were passing a fruit-shop and, 
" seeing how tired and thirsty he seemed," she proposed 
that they should buy a basket of the tempting strawberries 
there displayed. They went in and asked the price, and, 
hearing it, John Lawrence, who had " held the Gorgeous 
East in fee," at once came out again. " Spend ten shillings 
on myself for such a purpose ! I never did such a thing in 
my life! " 

Before the close of his strenuous life Lord Lawrence was 
deeply grieved to witness the overthrow of the frontier 
policy with which his name had become identified. Upon 
more than one occasion he had found his views upon 
Afghan affairs opposed to those of friends whose know- 
ledge of the border tribes was equal to his own. He had 
had little hope that any satisfaction would be derived from 
the treaty with Dost Mohammed, and had smiled grimly 
at the enthusiasm of Herbert Edwardes; and when the 
Commissioner of Peshawar had been justified by the amir's 
friendly attitude throughout the crisis of 1857, many of 
Lawrence's admirers allowed themselves to doubt whether 
after all the invincible John Lawrence had not a vulnerable 
heel — whether, though ready to place absolute trust in his 
judgment upon all other matters, one reservation might 
not be made. Other Anglo-Indians of equal authority 
maintained that Dost Mohammed remained neutral, not on 
account of the treaty, but because of his conviction that 
the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab would prove himself 
equal to any emergency. 



The Last Years of John Lawrence 335 

Dost Mohammed had died in the year 1863, just before 
Lawrence's return to India as Viceroy. For a time 
Afghanistan was convulsed by civil war, and as one claimant 
to the throne defeated a rival he would appeal to the 
Viceroy for recognition and assistance. Lawrence declined 
to interfere ; the ruler whom the Afghans accepted would be 
recognised by England, but must expect no help. Finally 
Shere Ali, the third son and nominee of Dost Mohammed, 
got the better of his opponents and secured the throne, 
and he and the Viceroy came to an understanding. So 
long as he remained de facto ruler of Afghanistan the Indian 
Government would help him to keep his borders intact 
and his turbulent subjects in order by gifts of arms and 
money, but not a man would be sent across the frontier: 
without England's approval he was not to conclude treaties 
with foreign powers; and though England must refuse to 
enter into a defensive and offensive alliance, he, the amir, 
was to be " the friend of our friends and the enemy of our 
enemies " : should Russia encroach, England would supply 
the Afghans with arms and money, and would deal with her 
elsewhere, but not in Afghanistan itself. 

Shere Ali had raised the objection that this arrangement 
was one-sided, but he could get no better terms from 
Sir John Lawrence, whose knowledge of the suspicious, 
jealous nature of the Afghans convinced him that English- 
men that should enter Afghanistan, even as allies or 
military advisers, would be regarded as enemies, that the 
presence of a British force in Kabul, even at the request of 
the ruler and with the definite purpose of defending the 
country against Russian aggression, would merely serve 
to incite hatred of the English and force the Afghans to the 
Russian side. "Never talk of sending a Resident to 
Kabul," Dost Mohammed had once advised him, for even 
he, the strong man of Afghanistan, " could not ensure his 
safety," and the warning had been laid to heart. Law- 

Y2 



336 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

rence maintained that whenever Russia might make the 
attempt upon India, the Afghans would probably — 
influenced by no regard for England's interests — oppose 
the advance tooth and nail, and would so harass and 
delay and weaken an invading army that a strong British 
force would have little difficulty in disposing of whatever 
remnant might make its way through the passes, and that 
the subsequent retreat of the invaders would result in such 
utter destruction that the attempt would not be repeated. 
As Viceroy he had also urged upon the Home Government 
that Russia " might be given to understand in firm but 
courteous language, that it cannot be permitted to interfere 
in the affairs of Afghanistan." 

But a new school of policy had been founded on the 
frontier and had grown powerful, for its gurus were men 
whose ability, experience, high character, and personal 
influence gave weight to their counsels. The " Forward 
Policy " had been tried with undoubted success by Sir 
Robert Sandeman and Sir Bartle Frere and their disciples 
along the upper Sind and Baluchistan frontiers. " With 
very little fighting," said Lord Roberts in the House of 
Lords on March 7, 1898, " Baluchistan — an immense tract 
of mountain and desert country, and inhabited by clans 
as wild and restless as any on our frontier — was rescued 
by that practical border officer [Sandeman] from a condition 
of absolute chaos, and turned into what is now a peaceful 
and prosperous province, where our officers move about 
freely escorted by the tribesmen themselves, and are 
everywhere met by signs of confidence and respect. Sir 
Robert Sandeman used to describe his policy as one of 
peace and goodwill,' and that it certainly was." 
Sandeman, Frere, and their followers had won the 
friendship of the wild Baluchi chiefs, for the forward policy, 
as initiated by them and as approved at present by Lord 
Roberts and other distinguished frontier officers, does not 



The Last Years of John Lawrence 337 

necessarily imply conquest by arms, but rather an earnest 
endeavour to extend British influence with the approval 
and goodwill of the tribesmen themselves. The true 
Afghans — the Duranis — and all the Sunni tribes are un- 
doubtedly bitter fanatics, prompt to raise the green 
standard of Islam and proclaim jehad at the bidding of the 
mullahs; but the Kazilbashes, the Hazaras (of Western 
Afghanistan), and a large proportion of the amir's subjects 
belong to the more tolerant and less inflammable Shiah 
sect, and these would welcome any change of policy 
calculated to protect trade and promote intercourse with 
the Punjab and Hindustan. The new school believed 
that though Afghan suspicion would be difficult to allay, 
a better understanding and more friendly relations with 
Afghanistan might be secured in time if the amir could 
be prevailed upon to consent to the presence of an English 
mission in his dominions, and if the right men could be 
sent, men with sympathy and tact and knowledge, whose 
motives were above suspicion. Their duty would be to 
demonstrate practically that, as their interests were bound 
together, England's aim was to strengthen and advance the 
prosperity of Afghanistan, and that such a consummation 
would be much more to her liking than the conquest of a 
barren country. Without any expectation of instantaneous 
success they ardently believed that in time the Afghan 
would regard the Englishman as a friend. They maintained 
that friendship and understanding were essential, and that 
so long as England held aloof and discouraged inter- 
course the Russian would be able to bid higher for Afghan 
support, and that the national greed, excited by the 
prospect of sacking the rich towns of India, would prove 
even stronger than the hatred of the kafir. Lawrence had, 
indeed, stated that, should the Russians be able to convince 
the Afghans of the assured success of a joint invasion, " I 
feel no shadow of a doubt that . . . the Afghans en masse, 



338 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

from the Amir of the day to the domestic slave of the 
household, would readily join in it," and the exponents 
of the forward policy, while admitting that in the event 
of a hearty co-operation between the British forces and 
the mountaineer guerillas there was little to fear, emphati- 
cally affirmed that against a Russo-Afghan alliance the 
existing boundary was strategically weak. 

" When the responsibility for the defence of the North- 
West Frontier devolved on me as Commander-in-Chief in 
India," said Lord Roberts, " I never contemplated any 
defence being possible along the frontier, as marked on our 
maps by a thin red line — the haphazard frontier inherited 
by us from the Sikhs — which did well enough so long as we 
had only to guard against tribal depredations, a frontier 
more than one thousand miles in length, with a belt of 
huge mountains in its front, inhabited by thousands of 
warlike men, over whom neither we nor any other Power 
had control, and with a wide, impassable river in its rear, 
seemed to me then, as it does now, an impossible frontier, 
and one on which no scheme for the defence of India 
could be safely based." 

.Many admirers of the policy of " masterly inactivity " ^ 
were undoubtedly enamoured of the " inactivity " and 
misunderstood the " masterly," and in essentials they were 
separated by a wider gulf from their great master than 
were some of the experts of the opposing school, who did 
not attempt to deny that their policy called for men of 
exceptional influence and of infinite tact, and that — risky 
in the hands of officials of average ability — in those of 
incompetents it was doomed to disastrous failure. On 
the other hand Sandeman's theory also received the warm 
support of many who failed completely to understand it. 
As a policy of aggression it was welcomed by all who held 

' The phrase applied to Lawrence's frontier policy by the Edin- 
burgh Review, January 1867. 



The Last Years of John Lawrence 339 

the opinion that what is good for the Enghshman must be 
better for the " nigger," that Oriental distaste for Western 
civihsation should be ignored, and that the stubborn 
barbarian who fails to appreciate the blessings of en- 
lightened government should, for his own good, be con- 
verted by force. 

In spite of Russia's assurance in 1872 that the " Imperial 
Cabinet continues to consider Afghanistan as entirely 
beyond its sphere of action," Russian agents were in 
constant communication with Shere Ali and were received 
by him in Kabul as honoured guests. The amir's bearing 
towards Russia at this time was largely influenced by 
pique and by resentment against England, to whose 
arbitration he had without hesitation submitted his dispute 
with Persia, confident in the political sagacity of " the 
friend of his friends and enemy of his enemies." But the 
decision had been given in favour of Persia, and the victim 
of misplaced confidence resolved to punish the offender 
by entering into a flirtation with the Russian suitor. The 
Russian, being much nearer to the Oriental in tempera- 
ment, and having fewer prejudices than the Englishman, 
assimilates with the Asiatic while his rival stands aloof, 
and the growing influence of Russia was seen in the estrange- 
ment of Shere Ali from his British ally. Lord Lytton, the 
Viceroy, renewed the attempts to persuade him to receive 
an English mission, but without success, and to crown all 
a Russian mission was welcomed at Kabul. Hereupon 
the Viceroy insisted that England could not be denied 
similar treatment, and warned the amir that a mission 
would be sent and that its favourable reception would be 
expected. 

It is doubtful if Lord Lytton had grounds for any such 
expectation, but he certainly placed in charge the one man 
who might have wrung success out of so desperate an 
enterprise. The reasons which influenced his choice of 



34° The Lawrences of the Punjab 

Sir Neville Chamberlain were these : he was the best man 
for the purpose; he knew the frontier and was respected 
by the Afghans ; he was held in honour by all men ; and he 
was known to be a firm friend of Lord Lawrence. General 
Chamberlain consented to go, and the mission prepared 
to push through the Khyber escorted by the Guides Cavalry 
and the Afridi tribesmen. As the amir had vouchsafed 
no reply there was good reason to believe that the mission 
would be stopped, so, in order to lessen the effect of such a 
blow to England's dignity, Major Cavagnari rode forward 
to Ali Musjid, the Afghan outpost at the far end of the 
Khyber, and was there turned back, the Afghan officer 
stating courteously but firmly that his orders were to prevent 
the passage of the mission by force if necessary. 

The affront was a serious one and Lord Lytton demanded 
an apology and an assurance that his envoy would be 
received, and meanwhile the Afridis of the Khyber in- 
formed Sir Neville that England would not dare to take 
any further steps, and that for the friendliness shown to 
him they would be left to bear the brunt of the amir's 
wrath. 

Lord Lawrence had been watching the trend of events 
with grave concern. Whatever may have been his opinion 
of the forward policy as a theory he was convinced that 
in practice it must break down, since too much depended 
on a supply of ideally-perfect officials. He also considered 
that Lord Lytton and some of his advisers in India and 
at home were not conspicuous for the possession of the 
necessary attributes of exceptional experience, insight, 
and tact; that there was much to be said on the side of 
the amir, who had been disturbed and irritated by spas- 
modic and officious interference. So in spite of the dis- 
suasion of his friends, who feared that he was not strong 
enough to endure the worry and vexation of a controversy 
that was all too likely to become acrimonious, he once more 



The Last Years of John Lawrence 341 

stepped into the arena in the hope of preventing the out- 
break of a costly and hate-engendering war. 

His first letter to The Times asked the nation to consider 
whether, even though the amir had indeed insulted 
England's representatives, the larger share of the fault 
must not be attributed to those who had tried to force the 
mission upon him. " It appears to me," he wrote, 
" contrary to sound policy that we should resent our 
disappointment by force of arms; for, by so doing, we 
play the enemy's game and force the Afghans into a union 
with the Russians." The reason of the amir's sullen, 
suspicious bearing towards the Government was not far 
to seek. It was this : " We appear to think that we can, 
in short, force our policy on them without their taking 
offence at such conduct. . . . Have not the Afghans a 
right to resist our forcing a Mission on them, bearing in 
mind to what such Missions often lead, and what Burnes' 
Mission in 1836 did actually bring upon them." Admitting 
the serious nature of the rebuff, he gave his opinion that 
" if we promise to give up forcing a Mission on him he would 
make any apology that we could reasonably call for. I 
urge that we were wrong, in the outset, in our policy 
towards the Amir in many instances which could be pointed 
out, and therefore, ought not to be over hard on him in 
accepting his excuses. I insist that there will be no real 
dishonour to us in coming to terms with him; whereas, 
by pressing on him our own policy, we may incur most 
serious difficulties and even disasters," and the prosecution 
of such a war " would utterly ruin the finances of India." 

In another letter he pleaded for delay, for, " should we, 
in the end, find that we were much to blame in the course 
we had pursued, we shall then feel that we have done a 
great wrong which it will be impossible to repair." 

His letters and his efforts as chairman of an influential 
committee formed to guide public opinion in the way of 



342 The Lawrences of the Punjab 

patience, had more influence upon the people than upon 
the Government of the country, and, no apology having 
been received from the amir, three columns were mobilised 
and Afghanistan was invaded with a promptness that has 
usually been conspicuously absent when the need for haste 
has been more apparent. It was then found that Lord 
Lawrence had not exaggerated the difficulties and the 
cost, and though the brilliance of General Roberts' cam- 
paigns and his masterly rule in Kabul saved England 
from the military disgrace and loss of prestige that attended 
the First Afghan War, there were few men of weight to be 
found that did not regret that the plea for patience had 
been unavailing. 

Lord Lawrence did not live to see the end. His last 
public act, on June 19, 1879, was to take part in a House 
of Lords debate on Indian finance. He was suffering 
from a severe cold at the time, but as he believed that 
certain of the Budget proposals would, if passed, inflict 
hardship upon the operatives and peasants of India, he 
considered the call imperative. He made his protest, but, 
shaken by illness and fatigue, he broke down in his carefully 
prepared speech, and, a few days later, on June 26, 1879, 
John Lawrence died. 



INDEX 



Abbott, General James, 119, 121 
142, 167, 188, 195, 197, 203 

Abu, Mount, 196, 224 

Ackers, Lieutenant, 13 

Adams, General Sir John, 56 

Addiscombe, 3, 5, 6, 11 

Adoption, right of, 226 

" Adventurer of the Punjab," the, 
66 

Afghanistan, 68-82, in, 145, 216- 
217, 334-342; treaty with, 216- 
217; wars with, 68-82, 342; 
frontier policy, 334-342 

Afridis, 76, 177, 182, 216, 340; 

Coke's, 212, 258 
Agra, 199, 236, 328 
Ajmere, 224 
Akbar the Great, 107 
Akbar Khan (son of Dost Mo- 
hammed), 80, 81 
Ali Musjid, 164, 340 
Aliwal, Battle of, 113 
AUahabad, 53, 63 
Amballa, 83, 168, 266, 268 
Amir Sing Thapa, 93 
Amritsar, 201 
Anderson, Lieutenant, 143 
Anderson, Major, 289 
Annexation of the Punjab, 157-158 
Anson, General, 260, 266, 272 
Arnold, Mr. William, 315 
Arracan, 15-16 
Artillery, the Bengal, 5, 11, 12; the 

Horse, 23, 56 
Aryans of Hindustan, 221 
Assessment problem, the, 38-40 
Auckland, Lord, 69-72 
Aunt Angel, 2-3 
Aurungzebe, 107, 109 
Ava, 14 

Avitabile, General, 73-74 
Azimullah Khan, 229 



Baber, Mogul emperor, 107 
Badli-ka-Serai, victory of, 273 



Bahadur Shah (son of Aurungzebe), 

109 (last of the Moguls), 252 et seq. 
Bahawalpur, the Nawab of, 305 
Baluchis, 304, 336 
Banks, Major, 289, 294 
Bannu, 203, 208, 215 
Barakzai clan, the, 68, in, 145 
Bareilly Mutineers, 274 
Bari Doab Canal, 166 
Barnard, General Sir Henry, 272, 

274, 281 
Barnes, George, 214, 215 
Barrackpore, 245 
Batten, Dr., 21 
Batten, Hallett, 21, 134 
Becher, General John, 119, 195, 

199, 270-271 
Bedis, the, 124-125 
Beecher, Colonel, 74 
Benares, 134 
Bhotan War, the, 322 
Bharat Pal, 228 

Bird, Robert Mertens, 40-41, 59 
Black Mountain Expedition, the, 322 
Bombay, commercial crisis in, 323 
Bori Afridis, the, 216 
Bowring, Lewin, 126, 127 
Brackenbury, Mr., 291 
Brahman supremacy in native 

army, 184 
" Brahmini Bull" essays, 118 
Brandon Hill, 4, 17 
Brandreth, Arthur, 278, 319 
Broadfoot, Major, 112 
Brockett Hall, 330 
Brydon, Dr., 71 
Buddhist priests employed by 

Gurkhas, 89 
Buddhist tribes of Nepal, 89 
Budhowal, Battle of, 113 
Bulram the murderer, 31 
Burma, 14, 15, 54, 86 



Calcutta, 13, 22, 25, 48, 321 
Calcutta Orphan Refuge, 49 
Calcutta Review, the, 27, 100, 106, 
183, 185, 230-231 



343 



344 



Index 



Cameron, letters to Mrs., 50, 52, 78 
Campbell, Sir Colin, 97, 135, 304, 

320 
Canals, see Irrigation 
Canning, Lord, 233-235, 255-256, 

276, 296, 310, 313 
Carabineers, the, 254 
Cartridges, the greased, 244 
Case, Colonel, 291 
Caste, abolished by Sikhs, 106-108; 

evils of, 123; dreaded loss of, 

240, 245 
Cavagnari, Major, 340 
Cawnpore, 23, 246, 290-291 
Ceylon, i 

Chamberlain, Major Crawfurd, 268 
Chamberlain, Field-Marshal Sir 

Neville, 211-212, 264-266, 277, 

281, 340 
Chandni Chouk, 301 
Chess, H. L.'s favom^ite pastime, 12 
ChilUanwalla, Battle of, 146 
China Expedition, the, 256 
Chinhut, 291-293 
Chitor, 222 
Chittagong, 14 
Cis-Sutlej States, the, 63 et seq., 83, 

256, 260-261, 311 
Clerk, Sir George, 63, 72, 73, 76, 77, 

83,95 
Clifton, 3, 16-17, 60 
Clive, Lord, 90, 321 
Cocks, Arthur, 142 
Coke, General Sir John, 212 
Coke's Afridis, 212, 258 
Collector, duties of a, 27 
College Green, Bristol, 3, 11 
College incidents, 5-6 
Colvin, Mr., 290-291 
Corbett, Brigadier, 262-263 
Cotton, Brigadier, 264, 269 et seq., 

275 
Cranborne, Lord, 325 
Craufurd, Padre, 13-16 
Currie, Sir Frederick, 63, 112, 117, 

132, 140, 142, 144 
Cust, Robert, 125, 126, 144 



D 



Dacoity, 85, 165 

Dalhousie, Marquis of, 143-234, 
307; not in sympathy with 
H. L., 147, 194; character and 
ability, 150-151, 167-168, 220; 
dissatisfaction with Lord Gough, 



155-156; bis affection for John, 
171, 219-220; his esteem for 
Henry, 177, 196, 307; and Sir 
Charles Napier, 181-186; chooses 
John to rule the Punjab, 195; 
offers Rajputana to Henry, 196; 
approves of the Afghan Treaty, 
216; departure from India, 220; 
advocacy of absorption, 226; his 
heroism, 233; letters to H. L., 
154-157, 170-171, 176, 178; 
letters to J. L., 171, 219-220, 307 

Dalhousie school, the, 202 

Daly, General Sir Henry, 209, 267 

" Darby O'Connor," 71 

Dehra Dhoon, the, 83 

Delhi, J. L. and, 25, 59, 87, 105, 
113, 122, 252; murder of Emro- 
peans, 254; importance of, 255; 
reinforced by J. L., 258, 277, 281, 
299; siege of, 272 el seq., 301-302; 
impression made by its capture, 
302 et:seq.; ^placed under J. L., 
308 ; the cry for vengeance, 309 

Delhi Arsenal, the, 254 

Delhi Gazette, the, 71, 118 

Delhi Ridge, the, 252, 254, 272 et 
seq. 

Derajat, the, 161, 303 

Derry school, the, 2, 174 

DhuUp Singh, 117, 133, 134, 168 

Disciples of Henry Lawrence, 119, 
149, 166-167, 199) 271, 296 

District, a, 25 

Dogras, 116, 129, 133, 299 

Dost Mohammed Khan, 68-70, 80- 
82, III, 145, 216-217, 256, 269, 
275, 334-335 

Dum-Dum, 12, 15 

Dundu Pant (the Nana Sahib), 229, 
242, 246, 291, 317 

Durbars of John Lawrence, 328-329 

Dyas, Lieutenant, 166 



Edmonstone, Mr., 207, 214 
Edwardes, Sir H. B., 4, 9, 47, 72, 75, 
116-119, 129, X37, 142-145, I54> 
188, 190, 195, 199, 204, 208, 212- 
217, 236, 264-276, 296, 300, 302, 
307, 313 et seq., 320, 334; chosen 
by H. L., 118, 119; brilliant feat 
of arms, 142-145; rebuked by 
H. L., 154; Commissioner of 
Peshawar, 215; the Afghan 



Index 



345 



Treaty, 216-217, 334; J. L.'s 
" Counsellor," 264; and Nichol- 
son, 264-270, 296; opposes 
abandonment of Peshawar, 275- 
276; suggests employment of 
Mazbi Sikhs, 300; the fall of 
Delhi, 302, 307; Memorandum 
on Elimination of Unchristian 
Principles, 313 et seq. ; character 
sketch of J. L., 320 
Edwardes, Lady, 120, 330 
Edwards, John, 12, 13 
Elasticity of the Sikhs, 115, 304 
Elgin, Lord, 320 
EUenborough, Lord, 80-84 
Elphinstone, General, 70-71 
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 122 
English children in India, 102 
Etawa, 59 



Fairy Hall, 13 

Famine, J. L.'s first experience of, 

59 ; in Orissa, 322 
Farmers of revenue, 39, 85, 187, 237 
Fatehghar, 304 

Fateh Khan (of the Guides), 164 
Fateh Khan Towana, 132 
Ferozepore, 63-66, 72, 79, 83, 112, 

281, 299; the Nawab of, 33 
Ferozshah, Battle of, 112 
Fiscal reform in the Punjab, 165- 

166 
Fort William, Calcutta, 22, 25 
Forward policy, the, 336 et seq. 
Foyle College, 2, 3, 7, 170 
Eraser, murder of Wm., 33 
Frere, Sir Bartle, 268, 336 et seq. 



Gaster, Miss, 333-334 

Getae, the, 108 

Ghazni, Nicholson at, 119 

Gillespie, General Sir Robert, 92 

Gladstone, Mr., 331 

Gorakhpur, 50, 52, 53, 94 

Gough, Lord, 113, 143-146, 155-156, 

180 
Gough's school, Bristol, 3 
Govind Singh, 107-110, 131, 162, 

300 
Grand Trunk Road, 166, 261, 302, 

304 ...... ...^X-.._.. 



Grant, Lieutenant, 287 

Granth, the (the Sikh Bible), 108 

Grateley, 329, 331 

Gray, Brigadier, 248 

Grey, Lord de, 325 

Gubbins, Martin, 234, 236, 288 et 
seq. 

Guernsey, i 

Gugara, revolt at, 305 

Guggur Sing, 97 

Guides, the Corps of, 55, 97, 162- 
165, 216, 258, 273, 340; Gurkha 
company of, 97, 163; anecdotes, 
164; sent to Delhi, 258; famous 
march, 273 

Gujerat, Battle of, 152, 156, 179 

Gulab Singh, 116-117, 121, 128-130, 
170, 177, 256, 271, 299 

" Gunpowder " Lawrence, 46, 72 

Gurkhas, 54, 89-98, 131, 135, 163, 
216, 224; Nasiri and Sirmur 
battalions, 94, 185, 256, 263, 273- 
274; controversy between H. L. 
and Sir C. Napier, 185; the only 
regulars to be trusted, 256, 263; 
heroism of the Sirmur battalion, 

273-274 
Guru (the Sikh high priest), 106-108 
Gurung clan of Gurkhas, 90 



H 



Haileybury College, 9, 20 
Halford, Colonel, 248 
Hall, Rev. Robert, 17 
Hamilton, Harriette Catherine 

(Lady Lawrence), 61 
Handscombe, Brigadier, 248, 287 
Hardinge, Lord, 9, 105-106, 113, 

115, 122, 134, 139. 140, 148 
Harris, Lord, i 
Hathaway, Dr., 327 
Havelock, Sir Henry, 274, 291, 292 
Hay, Lord W., 171 
Hayes, Rev. Mr., 61 
Hayes, Mrs. (Letitia Lawrence), 51, 

61, 66 
Hazara, 119, 168, 271 
Headmen of villages, 44, 138, 161, 

207 
Heath, Miss, 17 
Hewitt, General, 255, 272 
Hill- Rajputs, 89 
Hinduism more attractive than 

Sikhism, 303 
Hindu Rao's house, 273-274 



346 



Index 



Hodgson, Brigadier, 209, 211 
Hodson (of Hodson's Horse), 120, 

136, 149, 162 
Hogge, Sir James, 199 
Holkar, Mulhar Rao, no, 242 
House of Lords, J. L.'s reception in, 

331; J. L.'s last speech in, 342 
Huddleston, Mr. J., 3, 5, 19, 141 
Hyderabad, 194, 195 



" Illustrious garrison," the, 74, 79 
Imam-ud-Din, 128-130, 133, 143 
" Indian misgovernment," Napier 

on, 182-183 
Indus, army of, 63 
Infanticide, 123-125, 130 
Inglis, Colonel, 247, 289, 294 ; Lady, 

285 
Irish Church, disestablishment of, 

331 
Irrigation, 42, 86, 166, 324 



Jackson, Mr. Coverley, 234, 236 
Jaghirdars, 187-191, 200, 206, 236, 

261 
Jalandar, 115, 122, 127, 140, 142, 

144, 193, 268, 274, 321 
James, Major, 275, 277-278 
Jammu, 117, 121 
Jats, the, 108-109 
Jehangir, 107 

Jelalabad, 71, 74, 75, 77, 79, 112 
Jenkins, Sir F., 164 
Jhansi, 227 

Jhelum, mutiny at, 278-279 
Jhind, Raja of, 260-261, 311 
Jumma Musjid, 301, 309 
Junda Khore, Maharani of Lahore, 

133 
Jung Bahadur, Sir, 90, 96, 97, 135, 

163, 256 
Jypur, 223 
Jytak, siege of, 93 



K 



Kabul, 55, 67-71, 80-82, 86, 99, 339- 
342; massacre, 67, 71; entry of 
Pollock and Nott, 82; Russian 
mission to, 339 



Kalunga, defence of, 92-93 

Kandahar, 79 

Kangra Fort, 127-128 

Kapurthala, Raja of, 260-261, 311 

Karauli, 228 

Kashmir, in, 116-117, 129, 132, 

202, 299 
Kashmir Gate, Delhi, 300 
Kaye, Sir John, 14, 47, 50, 71, 100, 

118, 121, 139, 194, 218, 226, 239, 

251, 288, 297 
Kazilbash, Sultan Jan, 164 
Khalsa, the, 64, 72, 76, 107 et seq., 

129-130, 138, 152, 162; creation 

of, 108; crushed at Gujerat, 152; 

and poorbeahs, 257-258; dreams 

of a greater Khalsa, 261, 303-305 ; 

and the Peshawar mutineers, 28c- 

281 
Khas, a Gurkha clan, 89 
Khatmandu, 89 et seq. 
Khatris, 108 

Khyber, the, 72 et seq., 216, 340 
Knox, Rev. James, 2 
Kohat Afridis, 216 
Koh-i-nur, anecdote of, 173-174 
Kokraii Bridge, Lucknow, 293 
Kuki-Kheyls, the, 300 
Kumal, 22, 84, 86, 89; the Nawab 

of, 261 
Kytul, 84-86 



Lahore, 82-83, 114 et seq., 167, 175, 
262-263, 276, 280, 328; contin- 
gent, the, 82; treaty, the, 117; 
H. L.'s last day at, 200, 296; dis- 
armament, 262-263; importance 
of, 276; mutiny, 280; J. L.'s 
durbar at, 328 

Lahore durbar, the, 115 et seq., 128 
et seq. 

Lahore Gate, Delhi, 301 

Lahore Residency, the, 120, 137, 
271 

Lake, Edward, 119, 125, 195, 199 

Lai Singh, 117, 121, 128-133 

Lamas employed by the Gurkhas, 
89 

Lambardars (village headmen), 44, 
138, 161, 207 

Land revenue, 38 et seq., 123, 186 

Land survey, 38 et seq. 

Land tenure in the Punjab, 325 

Lapse, doctrine of, 226-229 



Index 



347 



Lawrence, Colonel Alexander 
(father of Henry and John), 1-2, 
18, 19, 46-47, 113 
Lawrence, General Alexander 
(brother of Henry and John), 2-3, 
5, 23 
Lawrence, Sir Alexander (eldest son 
of Henry), 57, JJ, 83, 95 

Lawrence asylums, 49, 102-104, 117, 
136, 176, 224, 295 

Lawrence, Charlotte (wife of Sir 
George), 62, 82 

Lawrence fund, the, 18, 47, 60 

Lawrence, General Sir George, 2-3, 
5, 23, 24, 55, 62, 80-82, 119, 131, 
142, 145, 175, 182, 235, 290; cap- 
tive to the Afghans, 62, 80-82; 
second captivity, 142, 145; 
tribute from Sir C. Napier, 182; 
succeeds H. L. in Rajputana, 235 

Lawrence, George (son of Sir 
George), 294 

Lawrence, Harriette Catherine 
(wife of Lord Lawrence), 61, 88, 
216, 305, 312, 329, 330 

Lawrence, Sir Henry Waldemar 
(second son of H. L.), 98 

Lawrence, Honoria (wife of H. L.), 
17, 46 et seq., 66, 77-78, 81-88, 
95-98, 120, 224-225; letters to 
Letitia, 51, 66, 82; letters to 
H. L., 57, 78, 81; letters to Mrs. 
Cameron, 50, 52, 78; letters to 
Sir George Clerk, 97 

Lawrence, Letitia Catherine 
(mother of Henry and John), 2, 
10, 16, 46-48, 60 

Lawrence, Letitia (sister of Henry 
and John), 2-4, 8-10, 11, 16, 17, 
20-23, 42, 46-51, 59-61, 82 

Lawrence, Letitia (daughter of 
H. L.), 66 

Lawrence, General Richard 
(youngest brother of Henry and 
John), 262-263, 299, 313 

Le Bas, Dean, 21 

Le Bas, Mr., 261 

Lepchas, the, 89 

Lewin, Lieutenant, 13 

Limbus, the, 89 

" Lion of the Punjab," in 

Literary work of H. L., 99 et seq. 

London School Board, the, 331-332 

Low, General, 195, 227, 231 

Lucknow, 135, 231 et seq., 256, 282 
et seq. ; H. L. appointed as Resi- 
dent, 235; first symptoms of 



mutiny, 247; the outbreak, 285; 
provisional council appointed, 
289 ; critical position after Chin- 
hut, 292; garrison saved by 
H. L.'s foresight, 297-298; J. L.'s 
durbar, 329 

Lucknow Residency, 248 et seq., 282 
et seq. 

Ludhiana, 63, 68 

Lumsden, General Sir Harry, 65, 
125, 128, 162-164, 203 

Lytton, Lord, 339-340 



M 



Macgregor, Robt. Guthrie, 6 
Mackenzie, Holt, 40 
Mackeson, Colonel, 76, 215 
Macleod, Donald, 200, 213-214, 263, 

314 
Macnaughten, Sir Wm., 70, 99 
Madan Pal, 228 

Magars, the (a Gurkha clan), 90 
Maharani of Lahore, the, 121, 127 

et seq. 
Mahratta states, 226-229 
Manjha, the, 162, 201, 246, 278, 303 
Mansel, Mr., 158, 159, 171, i74 
Mardan, 258 

Margaret, the nurse, 3, 60 
Marshall, Captain, 78 
Marshall, Honoria (wife of H. L.), 

17, 46 etseq. 
Marshman, Mr., 136 
Matabur Sing, 91, 96-97 
Matura, Ceylon, i 
Mayo, Lord, 328, 329 
Mazbi Sikhs, 300 
Meditations of a Sikh Soldier, 303 
Meerut, 252 et seq., 273 
Merivale, Herman, 168, 190, 198 
Metcalfe, Charles, 122 
Meywar, 175 

Mian Mir, disarmament at, 262-263 
Misls, Sikh, no 

Missionary work in India, 332-333 
Mogul attitude towards the Sikhs, 

107-109 
Mogul empire, decline of, 109-110, 

252 
Moguls, last of the, 252 
Mongolian races of Nepal, 89 
Montgomery, Robert, 167, 174, i75, 

191, 192, 207, 262-263, 308, 313, 

315 
Mori Bastion, the, 273 



348 



Index 



Mount Abu, 224 

Movable column, the, 264, 266, 277- 
281, 299 

Muchi Bawn, the, 282, 293 

Mudki, Battle of, 112 

Mulraj, Governor of Multan, 133- 
134, 141-148 

Multan, III, 133, 141-147, 268, 276 

Multanis enlist against poorbeahs, 
304 

Mungul Pandy, 245 

Murmis, the, 89 

Murree, mutiny at, 305, 311 

Musa Bagh, outbreak at, 247 

Mutiny, the, foreshadowed by H. L., 
99, loi ; causes of, 240-245 ; suc- 
cess rendered hopeless by capture 
of Delhi, 302; finally stamped 
out, 317 



N 



Nabha, the Raja of, 260, 311 

Nagpore, 174, 227 

Najafgarh, Battle of, 299 

Nana Sahib, the, 229, 242, 246, 291, 
317 

Nanuk, the first Sikh Guru, 106 

Napier, Sir Charles James, 146, 179- 
185, 263 

Napier, Robert (Lord Napier of 
Magdala), 137, 145, 166, 195, 208, 
213, 272 

Nasirabad mutineers, 274 

Nasiri Gurkha battalion, 94, 184, 
263 

Native aristocracy, 87-88, 187, 189 

Native officials, 26, 42, 139 

Native states, unrest in, 225 et seq. ; 
breakwaters to the storm, 290 

Nawabs (viceroys) of Oudh, 230 

Neemuch mutineers, the, 274 

Nepal, 53, 84, 88 et seq., 106, 134, 
256 

Newars, the, 89 

Nicholson, John, 27, 119, 142, 167, 
188, 195, 199, 208, 225, 269 etseq., 
299, 300-302 ; sent to frontier by 
H. L., 119; influence of H. L., 
149, 203, 204, 209, 296; and 
J. L., 203, 210, 216;; influence on 
the frontier, 208-210; shoots an 
assassin, 210; quarrel with 
Chamberlain, 211-212; and Lord 
Roberts, 264; routs the Now- 
shera mutineers, 270; opposes 



J. L.'s proposal to give up 
PeshawEir, 275-276; in com- 
mand of movable column, 277 et 
seq.; sent to take Delhi, 281; 
mortally wounded, 301 ; letters 
to H. L., 203, 210; letters to 
J. L., 210, 277 

NicoUs, Sir Jasper, 72 

Northcote, Sir Stafford, 322, 325 

North-West Provinces, 24, 40 et 
seq., 83, 95, 122, 199, 306 

Nott, General, 79 et seq. 

Nowshera mutiny, 269-272 



O 



Ochterlony, General, 93 

Ommaney, Mr., 236, 289 

Orissa, famine in, 322 

Ottah at Meerut, the, 273 

Oudh, 202, 229 et seq., 257, 282 et 

seq., 306, 325; wretchedness 

under native rule, 202, 229 et seq. ; 

annexation, 233; chief commis- 

sionership offered to H. L., 235; 

Irregulars, 247-250, 288, 292; 

spread of rebellion, 288; tenant 

right in, 325 
Outram^ Sir James, 122, 180, 215, 

231, 234, 256 
Ownership of land, 39-40 



Palmer, Colonel, 248 

Palmerston, Lord, i, 320 

Pandy, derivation of nickname, 245 

Paniput, 27 et seq., 87, 105 

Passive resistance, 34 

Pathan tribesmen, 74, 77, no, 131, 
303, 320; enrolled by Edwardes 
against Mulraj, 145; in the Pun- 
jab Frontier Force, 161- 162; 
attitude towards poorbeahs, 258- 
260; enlist freely at Peshawar, 
270, 303-305 

Patiala, Raja of, 260-261, 311 

Payment in kind, 39, 123, 186 

Peace unfavourable to Sikhisra, 303 

Peishwa, the (head of the Mahrat- 
tas), 229 

Persia, 69, 256 

Peshawar, 74 et seq., in, 131, 145, 
166, 182, 215-217, 258, 264 et seq., 
277,280,302-303; importance of. 



Index 



349 



215, 269, 275 et seq. ; council of 
war at, 264; the " masterstroke," 
269; proposed abandonment, 
275; mutiny at, 280; illumi- 
nated, 302-303 

Phillour, mutiny at, 268 

Police force in the Punjab, 165 

Pollock, General, 75 et seq. 

Poorbeahs, 230, 258 

Pottinger, Eldred, 69 

Prince Consort and J. L., 319 

Prithi Narayan Sahi, 90 

Protected Sikh states, 63-65, 260, 

311 
Public works in the Punjab, 166, 

188, 207, 213, 324 
Punjab Frontier Force, 161-162, 

183. 255; raised by H.L., 161- 162; 

sent to Delhi by J. L., 255 
Punjab movable column, see 

Movable column 
Punjabis, 108, iii, 160 
Punjabi-Mohammedans as soldiers, 

162, 304 



Q 



Queen Victoria honours J. L., 319 
Queen's Gate, Kensington, 330 



R 



Raikes, Mr. C, 29, 53, 208, 214 

Railway extension under J. L., 324 

Rais, the, 89 

Rajasthan, 221 

Rajputana, 195 et seq., 221 et seq., 
235 

Rajputs, 108, 123, 221-228 

Raleigh, Cornet, 287 

Ramnuggur, Battle of, 146 

Ramsay, Colonel Balcarres, 36 

Ram Singh, miurder of, 31 

Rani of Jhansi, the, 227 

Ranjit Singh, 63-66, 74, no et seq., 
127, 133, 141. 162, 165, 173, 187, 
242 

Ranjur Thapa, 93 

Rawul Pindi, 253, 262, 265-267, 
278, 302 

Reade, Mr., 50 

Reed, General, 264-265, 281 

Reid, General Sir Charles, 273 

Revenue assessment, 38 etseq., 207; 
farmers, 39, 85, 187, 237; sur- 
vey, 38 et seq. 



Rewari, riot at, 34 
Rice-swamps and plague, 86 
Richmond, Yorks, birthplace of 

J. L., I 
Ricketts, Mr., 268 
Ripon, Lord, 325 
Roberts, Field-Marshal Earl, 264, 

266, 297-298, 336, 338, 342 
Roberts, Arthur, 263 
Rohtak mutineers, 274 
Russian intrigues, 69, 335 et seq. 



Sadalpur, Battle of, 146 

Sadozais, the, 68 

Sale, General, 74, 83 

Salisbury, Lord, 325 

Sanawar, 103, 136 

Sandeman, Sir Robt., 336, 338 

Sattara, 226 

Saunders, Mr. C, 219 

School Board, the London, 331-332 

Scott, Mr. Hercules, 125 

Selimghur Prison, 301 

Sepoys, reasons for disaffection, 

239-245 ; confidence in, 240-241 ; 

good qualities of, 240; the 

greased cartridges, 244 ; nmnbers 

in Punjab, 258 
Shah Jehan, 107 

Shah Shuja, the Amir, 68 et seq., 82 
Shere Ali, the Amir, 335 et seq. 
Sialkot, mutiny at, 279 
Sikhs, the, 63 et seq., 72 et seq., 106 

et seq., 162, 303 et seq. 
Simla, 130, 137, 172, 259 
Simpsons, the (masters at Foyle 

College), 174-175 
Sind, 179, 181, 202, 336 
Sindhia, Madhaji, no, 242 
Singh (lion) adopted as a second 

name by Sikhs, 107 
Sirdars, Sikh, 66, no, 121, 131, 

139-140 
Sirhind sacked by Sikhs, 109 
Sirmur Gurkha battalion, 94, 273- 

274 
Sitapur, 287 
Skinner's house, 301 
Sleeman, Colonel, 195, 231, 232 
Smith, Colonel Baird, 300, 302 
Sobraon, Battle of, 113 
Southgate, 330 
Stanley, Lord, 177, 318, 320 
Stephen, Captain, 291 



350 



Index 



Strachey, Colonel, 324 

Stuart, Colonel, 37 

Sunwars, the, 89 

Survey, Irish Trigonometrical, 17; 

revenue, 38 et seq. 
Sutlej, the, 63, 112, 148, 258 
Suttee, 126, 224 



Tait, Dr., 319 

Talukdars of Oudh, 236-238, 246, 

283, 289, 325 
Taylor, General Sir Alexander, 166, 

278, 300, 302 
Taylor, General Reynell, 119, 195, 

199, 203, 206 
Teg Bahadur, 107, 300 
Tej Singh, 133-134 
Temple, Sir Richard, 190, 204, 207, 

331 
Tenant light in Oudh, 239, 325 
Terai, the, 53, 94 
Thakurs, the (a Gurkha clan), 89- 

90 
Thomason, Mr. James, 46, 84, 95, 

122, 239 
Thornton, Mr., 302, 311 
Thuggee, 165, 231 
Transport system, 11 3- 114 
Trans-Sutlej States, 115, 127, 256 
Troup, Captain, 80 
Turanian invasion, 108 



U 



Udaipur, 223 



Umbeyla campaign, 320 

Unrest in native states, 225 et seq. 



Vans Agnew, murder of Mr., 143 
Village communities, 43-45, 207 
Volunteer cavalry at Chinhut, 292 



W 

Water Bastion, the, 300 
Waziri raids, 211 

Wellington, Duke of, 69, 105, 146 
Wheeler, General, 246, 290-291 
Whish, General, 145 
Wild, Brigadier, 73-74 
Willoughby, Lieutenant, 254 
Wilson, Colonel, 246-247, 285-286, 

293-294; General Sir Archdale, 

281, 301 
Wood, Sir Charles, 320, 325 
Wraxhall School, 7, 19 
Wright, Captain, 264 



Young, Lieutenant, 154 
Yueh-chi, the, 108 



Zeman Khan, 211 



THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH 



THE TEMPLE BIOGRAPHIES 

Edited by DUGALD MACFADYEN, M.A. 

Large Crown 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Top 

" The Temple Biographies " are intended to be an experiment 
in that realm of historical biography in which Plutarch is king. 
The series will bring together studies in the lives of men who have, 
by common consent, achieved the greatness which belongs to 
character rather than to status or circumstance. The two supreme 
interests of history, whether modern or ancient, lie in the history of 
men and the history of movements; and, of the two, the first is the 
more central, for there is no movement which is not first incarnated 
in a life; and reforms, institutions, eras, and even constitutions, 
can only be interpreted through the men who lived in them and in 
whom they lived; thus personality, which is now the chief interest 
of philosophy, may be regarded as also the mainspring of history. 

MAZZINI. By Bolton King, M.A. Second Edition. 

This volume contains a life of Mazzini and a study of his thought. 
It can hardly be said that any serious attempt has been made 
to deal with either. Hence the present volume, however unequal 
to the subject, may have its use. The thirty years which have 
passed since Mazzini's death make it possible now to place him 
in his true perspective; and the author trusts that the supreme 
admiration which he feels for Mazzini as a man has not prevented 
him from viewing the politician with impartiality. 

BROWNING. By Edward Dowden, M.A. Third Edition, 

" In the case of those whom the public has learned to honour and 
admire, there is a biography of the mind — the phrase is Mr. Glad- 
stone's — that is a matter of deep interest." The special function 
of the present book is to give such a biography of Browning's 
mind, associating his poems with their date and origin, as may 
throw some light on his inward development. 

G. F. WATTS. By Rev. Hugh Magmillan, M.A. 

Second Edition. 

The aim of the book is to give a literary interpretation of what 
Watts, with larger, other eyes than ours, has seen in nature, poetry 
and myth, and in human character. The expositions of his most 
characteristic pictures, which will be found in its pages, are the 
results of a reverential study of them by one who has derived from 
them much intellectual insight and elevation of soul. 

Major-General HARRISON. By C. H. Simpkinson, M.A. 

The Fifth Monarchy men, whom Major-General Harrison repre- 
sents, have generally been judged to stand as hopeless defaulters 
at the bar of common sense. It is eas)' for those who read history 
in arm-chair ease to see that they made fatal blunders in the inter- 
pretation of events; but it is due to them to recognise that they 
held with zeal which shames our listlessness an ideal which for 
purity and splendour is, when compared with those for which our 
generation gives its strength, as a Matterhorn amongst mclehills. 

THE LAWRENCES OF THE PUNJAB. By F. P. Gibbon. 



